Four Friends
by ozma914
Summary: Post Chosen: When Tara's ghost is embodied, the Buffybot is rebuilt, and Dana's sanity partially restored by a series of questionable spells, their friendship with a new Slayer forms them into an unlikely group of friends.
1. Chapter 1

_**This is one of what I hope eventually will be a series of small stories about Four Friends: two underused minor characters from Buffy and Angel, a beloved Buffy icon, and a young slayer of my own creation, who takes a quiet moment here to think about how far she's come in a short time. Thanks to my beta, Ainon. With the exception of young Kara, I own nothing.**_

----

"Are you going to play, or sit there staring off into space?" asked the robot double of Buffy Summers.

Kara Philips glanced across the table and gave an apologetic smile. "Sorry." She laid a card down, which made Dana's eyebrow rise.

"You suck."

"Hey, my game is Twister." She didn't mind Dana's words. In her experience, if the formerly psychotic vampire slayer gave an insult without throwing something at the same time, it was a term of endearment. Kara glanced to her left, where another of her opponents kept shimmering in and out of view. "Your turn."

"Hm." Tara McClay stretched --which was totally unnecessary for a ghost -- and looked around the mostly empty lounge of the Chicago Watcher's Headquarters. Also unnecessary, since she could always tell when living people were nearby. Kara realized the young woman must be stalling.

"So," she told Tara with a grin, "The spirit's willing, but the flesh is weak?"

"Ha ha." Looking triumphant, Tara concentrated on moving two of her cards, and a moment later a gasp of dismay went up from her three opponents.

"You're cheating!" Buffybot protested.

"Why would I cheat? It's not like I can do anything with that stack of nickels. You, on the other hand, can feed them into your nose and play songs."

Tara started to give the robot a good natured ribbing, backtracking from time to time to explain why something was funny, while Dana looked on with a bemused expression. Kara sat back, game forgotten, and pondered on how she'd come to be a part of this odd group of friends. There she sat with a ghost, a robot and a psycho -- and her just a normal girl. Well, normal until a year ago, when she'd felt that sudden surge of power flow through her like a supersized can of Jolt.

Strange. Had it been less than a year ago, when her life had been turned upside down? At the time she didn't make the connection between the CNN report of a California town that sank into a giant cavern, and the way she suddenly kicked ass in her martial arts class. Then -- then they showed up at the Indiana coffee shop where she worked: The wisecracking one eyed guy and his teenage girl companion, announcing vampires were real and it was her destiny to slay them.

She'd never have believed them if a crew of those selfsame vampires hadn't come walking in minutes later, proving their point that slayers didn't need to look for trouble -- it came looking for them.

"The cards have meaning," Dana was saying, staring hard at the ones in her hand. "They're like a family -- kings and queens, numbers for children, jacks for weird cousins ..." To either side of her Tara and Buffybot concentrated, trying to figure out if Dana's words gave any clues to her hand. Both could use their own unique senses to cheat, but both studiously avoided it.

Strange friends, Kara thought. Good friends, but ... she'd had her own friends, back in Madison. Normal friends, a guy who was maybe interested in her, a home, and a more or less normal father who sat at home and wrote books, and had never heard the term "watcher".

Until she trashed the coffee shop and accompanied Xander and Dawn back to her home, only to be attacked by demons. That's when she found out the slim teenage girl who'd walked into the coffee shop was a transdimensional key, and very popular with bad guys who wanted unlimited power.

Vampires, demons, slayers, balls of energy who looked like normal people ... What ever happened to worrying about the Homecoming Dance?

Buffybot made her play. "I'm down two dollars," she complained. "I think I need a tune up."

"A hydraulic blood transfusion," Dana suggested. "Or defrag your brain."

"Call Bill Gates," Kara murmured.

Buffybot gave her a quizzical look. "I've got OSX."

"Maybe you have a virus," Dana continued with a frown.

At Buffybot's panicked look, Tara quickly put in, "I'm sure you're just having a run of bad luck, Bottie. Andrew and Willow are keeping a very close eye on your systems."

"You're right." Buffybot agreed with a confident nod, but then she tilted her head and frowned. "Does a checkup require me to remove all my clothing?"

Dana shook her head vigorously, while Kara and Tara exchanged looks. "I'll talk to Andrew," Kara assured the spirit.

The spirit. Huh. The spirit, and the robot, once thought trashed, now brought back to life by magical energies. The crazed slayer Dana, whose overdose of supposedly curing magics had trashed the building, but returned both her and Buffybot to more or less normal.

As if anything could be called normal, anymore. By the end of that first week she'd added witches and ghosts to her list of new acquaintances, along with demons that haunted dreams and made people sing, stuffy Englishmen, dimensional portals, the undead, and Faith. Okay, so stuffy Englishmen might not fit on the list, but _she'd_ never met one before.

"Kara?" Dana said, in that hesitant way she had when she thought she'd upset someone.

Kara focused, and realized the others were waiting for her to play. "Sorry. I was just thinking of everything that's happened."

"I understand," Buffybot said brightly. "It's been a strange life. I was torn into pieces, stored in a box, probed by the government, and fixed by magic."

Tara nodded. "I got brain sucked and shot, so ... there you go."

Dana, staring at the table, spoke quietly. "I got tortured in a dungeon."

An uncomfortable silence followed. Tara started to reach for the young slayer, then drew back when Buffybot touched Dana's hand instead, grasping it firmly.

"I'm sorry." Kara felt idiotic. Why stir all that up, especially when Dana was so unstable as it was? "Um, I was talking about just the last year."

Dana eyed her for a moment, in a way frighteningly similar to the expression she'd had just before she blew up the gym. But before Kara could figure out how to work damage control, the other slayer gave her a sly smile. "Oh. Well, then, I cut Spike's arms off."

Buffybot and Tara looked horrified, but Kara drew a sigh of relief. She'd been spending enough time with Dana to know when the young woman was attempting a joke, and this one was actually kind of funny, in an icky way. Besides, she'd met Spike once, and it hadn't gone well. He'd been, in point of fact, a jerk.

A jerk vampire with a soul, which kind of fit the whole theme. Kara shook her head. "I was just wondering if my life's gotten better or worse, since I became a slayer. I liked our house, and I liked our little town. Now I'm on the fourteenth floor of a skyscraper, I have the shelf life of a teen pop sensation, and the father who's supposed to keep me out of trouble tells me to stay out all night and walk through dangerous neighborhoods."

The other three were silent for a moment, and Kara felt the blood rising in her cheeks. Why didn't she just shut up? But before she could tell them to forget it, Buffybot burst out, "But if you hadn't become a slayer, you wouldn't have been there to put me back together!"

Dana added, a good deal more quietly, "And if Bottie hadn't been brought to the headquarters, I would have killed people when I escaped."

Oh. Kara hadn't thought of it that way. Wasn't that what most people wanted? To change the world, make a difference? It looked like she done that by accident.

"What would you rather be doing?" Tara asked quietly.

That was the question, then. Making cappachino's for the people of Madison, Indiana? Sucking face with Jason? Playing loud pop music and shopping for clothes? Looking at college pamphlets?

Well, yeah. But she didn't need anyone to tell her there was more to life than that. Not anymore.

Finally she looked around, taking in the robot, the maniac, and the ghost. "I'd rather be playing. Give me all your eight's."

Tara just smiled. "Go fish."

END


	2. Four Friends and a Funeral

_****Special thanks to LunerGirl129, who designed the outfits for my four heroes in this story, and was disappointed I didn't spend more time describing them._

**----**

**_Kara, Dana and the Buffybot are assigned an easy mission to dust one newbie vampire. Naturally, all does not go as planned._**

Kara braced her back against the van's bench seat and tugged, only to be rewarded with a ripping sound. "This is impossible! We're on a mission. I can see having to wear body armor, or a utility belt, or something -- useful. But this is torture! And now it has a run."

Buffybot tossed an egg shaped plastic container to Kara. "I brought extra!" the Robot chirped happily. "Spike taught me all about how to wear lingerie."

Kara, her mind going to a bad place, raised a hand. "Say no more, Bottie. Please."

In the other seat that lined the rear of the van, Dana sat very still, staring at the sheer pantyhose draped over her hand. "This is a torture device."

"No, really it isn't," Kara assured her, as she ripped off the remains of her first pair and started over. "I mean, it was obviously designed by a man, so yeah, but it's just meant to make your legs look nice."

Dana remained unconvinced. "You taught me to shave my legs for this?"

Bottie, who had finished already and was examining herself critically in a mirror hung against the back door, wrinkled her nose. "Dana, you look much better with smooth legs. I can't believe you never shaved until you were over eighteen."

"They didn't give us razors where I was." With a long suffering sigh, Dana pulled off her sneakers and began arranging the hosiery. "So, it wasn't all bad."

A clipped British voice suddenly emerged from behind the curtain that separated them from the driver's compartment. "Ladies, are you almost finished? We are on a mission, you know."

"Almost, Giles!" Bottie did a little whirl, managing to keep from banging her head on the metal roof. "I look drop dead gorgeous!"

"Yes, you do," Kara agreed, without looking up from her chore. She had to concentrate -- Bottie couldn't have brought too many spares. Besides, she'd already seen Bottie's midnight blue silk dress on the hanger, and didn't have to imagine how great the robot would look ... compared to Kara.

Dana actually cleaned up pretty good, once they'd gotten her past her fear of curling irons, and even without pantyhose would look fine in the knee length, layered, black dress the girls chose for her. Kara had also opted for the traditional black, although she'd reluctantly agreed to a halter style that showed more skin than she was comfortable with. For some reason, her friends had made it their mission in life to completely change her wardrobe. Still, she doubted anyone would be paying attention to someone as gawky as her, with her braces and mousy brown hair, as long as she stayed close to the other two.

But staying together wasn't part of the plan, was it?

Kara stood up, finally managing to get the pantyhose into place with a minimum of wrinkles. "Giles, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"It's the only alternative, Kara. This gentleman was a girl's school teacher, and had a thirty year history of coaching girl's team sports ... no one is going to notice another few females, but I'm afraid I'd stand out like a --"

"Dried up old British guy?" Bottie finished helpfully, while helping Dana adjust pantyhose that had become twisted around the girl's thighs.

"That wasn't the expression I was looking for. My point is, if Andrew's new scientific method of calculations is correct, Mr. Jamison will arise sometime during the viewing tonight, and we must be there to deal with it."

"But none of us have much field experience," Seeing the other two had finished, and Dana had dropped her skirt to a more modest level, Kara pulled the curtain open to reveal Giles sitting behind the driver's seat. She could see the funeral home, with a stream of young women already entering, through the windshield. "Especially in dresses."

"Nonsense. Both you and the Buffybot have fought vampires and demons, and Dana also has ... experience. Jamison will be a new, inexperienced vampire. You have a plan in place ... all you have to do is be cautious that the vampire who turned Jamison hasn't come early to claim his offspring."

"Which is very rare," Bottie said reassuringly. "They usually keep their distance until the newly turned vampire kills off his family and friends, and the excitement's died down."

"Only this one's going to come to life during a viewing," Dana murmured. "It's much harder to be a vampire, these days."

Giles shook his head. "This all assumes Andrew is correct, and there are many variables that effect when a dead person will turn. You may have nothing to deal with but boredom and sticking to your cover stories."

"I can deal with that," Kara declared with feigned confidence, before checking herself in the mirror. Crap, another pimple, dead center in her forehead. She dabbed a little makeup on it, and wondered if slayers past had ever spent much time looking after their appearance. If Buffy and Faith were any indication, she'd have to guess yes.

"Off with you then, and remember, I'll be right here and available by cell phone. If all goes well, I'll buy you an ice cream on the way back to the airport."

Rolling her eyes, Kara stepped into the humid Miami evening. "Giles should have to wear pantyhose," she muttered as soon as the van's back door clicked shut. "Then at least we'd be walking in there with slacks." She waited for Bottie to take the lead, then she and Dana flanked the robot, heading toward the funeral home.

"How would we know if Mr. Giles was wearing pantyhose?" Dana asked, casting a sidelong glance at Kara. "He always wears long pants. Imagine seeing him in shorts."

"Oh my God."

They stopped at the entrance, and waited while two other girls went in. "Okay, let's review," Bottie said, glancing around to make sure they had a moment alone. "Dana will stay close to the coffin, while Kara and I split up and mix in with the crowd. If Mr. Jamison tries to get out, Dana will stake him while we provide a distraction."

"Head, heart." Dana nodded. "But what distraction?"

"I'll stay close to whatever boys are in there," the robot told her, "and pretend one made a rude comment to me."

"I'll faint," Kara suggested. "Um, loudly."

Bottie clapped her hands in glee. "It's a plan! I'm after the hot guys, yay!"

Great. Kara followed them in, then paused again at the guest register. "Should we --" She looked up, and saw the wide double doors to the viewing room were open, with dozens of people milling around in plain sight. "It'll look suspicious if we don't."

"Right!" Bottie signed "Buffy Summers II" with a flourish, then handed the pen to Dana. The other girl concentrated much harder on scratching out her signature, before passing the pen on to Kara. Kara signed, then glanced at the other names on the list. She dropped the pen and stared hard at a name several lines above theirs: "Tara McClay".

"Hey. Do you guys --" But the other two had already made their way into the viewing room. Seeing a line had formed behind her, Kara hurried on, and wondered how many Tara McClays there were in the world. Even if their Tara was here, she wouldn't have signed her name. Or would she? After all, Tara had been working hard on interacting with the real world, and she'd always been one to do the polite thing.

The room was bigger than any funeral home Kara had been in, and packed. A low murmur of conversation almost drowned out the sad tinkling of a classical music piece, while the shag carpeting and thickly draped walls tended to absorb all sound. Unfortunately, it was brighter than Kara had expected. But then, no normal amount of dimming would likely hide the deceased leaping out of his coffin.

As Giles predicted, almost all the occupants of the room were female, and all the females were dressed in similar fashion: dresses, mostly knee length, ranging from somber pastel colors to black. The girls ranged greatly in age, but most seemed to have the hard, slim bodies of high school athletes. Leave it to the Head Watcher to have everything scoped out before they even arrived.

She spotted a way too animated blonde head, bobbing its way toward a few boys huddled in one corner. In the other direction, Dana weaved her way toward the coffin, trying to avoid contact with anyone else as she single mindedly pursued her assignment.

Then Kara's view was blocked by a broad, black clad, very male chest. She looked up to see it was connected to an equally male head, with a shock of blonde hair and alert, bright blue eyes. Eyes that were focused directly on her.

Wow. Hottie. Say something, stupid. "Um," Kara said.

"Hi." His gaze sweeping past her, the hot guy smoothly glided past, headed in the general direction of the Buffybot -- just like every other male in the room.

Kara sighed, and pasted herself against the nearest wall. This all reminded her of the high school dances she'd attended. She hadn't had much fun at those, either.

"Oh, hi!" Kara twisted around, and almost collided with a girl a few years older than her, who was holding a cup of punch and scoping out the room. "Big sendoff, huh?"

"Um, yeah."

"I'm Julie." Julie looked like a cheerleader. "I'm a cheerleader. Well, I was, but now I'm a Wal-Mart associate. Were you on one of Mr. Jamison's teams?"

"Um, gymnastics."

Julie's perfect face crinkled. "But Mr. Jamison didn't coach gymnastics."

"I mean, gym. I had him in gym class. And volleyball."

"Oh! I played volleyball in junior high. Go Cougars!"

"Yeah, go." Despite herself, Kara felt a brief surge of annoyance. Her school's mascot had been a Knight.

"It's so terrible about what happened. I mean, how can a guy as athletic as Mr. Jamison fall onto a javelin?"

Ouch. That WOULD hurt. "Well, accidents happen."

"Yeah." For a moment Julie stared off with a vacant expression, then her eyes widened. "Hey, Cathy! Big sendoff, huh?" Without a second glance, the girl moved off.

Poor girl, Kara thought, as she looked around again. Being a high school cheerleader might end up being the highlight of Julie's life, and she hadn't even considered the possibility. Kara might not have been one of the popular girls, but none of the popular girls ever kicked a green horned demon's ass before, and nobody had ever handed Kara a blue vest and called her an associate trainee.

Dana still stood by the coffin, staring intensely into the open lid. So intensely, in fact, that several of the mourners had started casting nervous glances at her. Kara started that way, but paused when a high pitched giggle caused heads to turn toward the opposite corner, where Buffybot was now surrounded by a growing group of male admirers. She was eating it up.

"Well, at least she's happy," Kara murmured, before heading on toward the coffin.

She paused by Dana, and tapped the girl gently on the shoulder. With a start, Dana jerked around to give Kara a wide eyed look. "I think his eyes fluttered."

Unfortunately, she said it at the moment one of those uncanny silences, which sometimes fall on crowds, fell on this one. It was followed by a much more predictable shocked silence, as heads twisted toward the two slayers. Feeling her face redden, she leaned in closer. "Dana --"

"Twice. They almost opened."

"Dana, you're upset. It's understandable, the way you lost your favorite teacher." As she spoke, Kara allowed her voice to raise a little. "But you have to accept that he's gone, and nothing on this totally not supernatural world will bring him back."

Suddenly becoming aware of their audience, Dana clamped her mouth shut.

Oh, boy. Now what? "Um, go to the restroom and splash some water on your face. you know, to get your perspective and stuff." And to get everyone's attention off you. "Then come RIGHT BACK."

"Oh. Yes, I will." Casting another quick glance toward Mr. Jamison's peaceful face, Dana hurried off.

Good. Fine. The others went back to talking as if they hadn't heard the exchange, and the male voices coming from Buffy's corner of the room were getting louder as their owners competed for the robot's attention, so Kara felt safe in assuming nobody would be coming after them with big butterfly nets. She stood there for a moment, trying to be invisible, then glanced down at the body. Jamison was a little pudgier than she'd expected, and he looked incredible peaceful.

Except for his fluttering right eyelash.

Kara glanced at her watch. Yep. They'd taken more time dressing than she'd thought. She looked toward Bottie, willing the robot to turn her attention this way, like she was supposed to. Bottie was, indeed, keeping both eyes out -- on every male in the room.

Okay, Kara told herself -- think. Maybe she could throw something across the room, diverting attention. No, everyone would look to see where the object came from. Besides, what was she supposed to throw? At each end of the coffin was a table holding flowers and an ornate, hand carved candlestick, but nothing the size of a stone, or a coin. She patted her purse, feeling two stakes, a cross, a bottle of holy water, lipstick, and a pack of Wrigley's Spearmint. Boy, with this dry mouth she could use some gum right now. Come on, Kara! Focus!

That familiar wall of tall and tasty blonde male appeared before her again. Her focus changed entirely.

"Um ... are you okay?" Unlike most teenagers, he didn't look at all gawky or awkward in his black suit, and his smile made it clear he wasn't uncomfortable to be here. "You look a little ..."

Kara cleared her throat. "Um. Teach. Teacher -- him. Dead."

"Oh." He put a firm, comforting hand on her shoulder. "I know, it's terrible. I'm Jack."

"Hi, Jack. Hijack! Hah."

His smile widened, while Kara mentally kicked herself with her black patent leather flats. "Yeah, it's a nickname for John. No one knows why. So, do you have a name?"

"Oh. Um, Kara. I have a last name, too." She stopped, trying to remember what her last name was, and moaned at how totally lame she was.

No, wait. That wasn't HER moaning.

Her peripheral vision revealed the corpse's arms starting to move -- think time was most definitely over. With one quick motion, Kara grabbed the lid of the coffin and slammed it shut. All noise in the room stopped. Hordes of people stared at her in shock, but Kara mostly noticed Jack, who seemed only mildly surprised, but took a step back. "Kara?"

"I -- I miss him SO MUCH!" Sobbing theatrically, she threw herself over the coffin, hoping nobody noticed it was starting to shudder from an internal force. A few people in her audience murmured consolations, but otherwise they continued to stare at her. Where the crap were her friends?

"It's all right." Jack's cool hand stroked her cheek, soothing some of the heat rising into her face. "We're all here to show how we felt. But why don't we open the lid back up -- poor Mr. Jamison could probably use the air." He smiled again, still wider.

Hey. Wait a minute. Kara examined Mr. Hottie more closely. Charming, smooth, piercing eyes, cool friggin skin ...

Double crap.

"I BET you want to let him out," she hissed.

Jack's smile faded. "What?"

At that moment, someone shouted from the doorway, "He was my LOVER!"

Tara McClay -- Kara's friend Tara, accept no substitutes -- stood there, looking completely alive. She appeared stunning in an ankle length, spaghetti strap, burgundy dress -- did ghosts have wardrobes? Where did they keep them? In any case, diverting attention didn't turn out to be a problem when Tara stabbed a hand theatrically at the coffin. With all eyes on her, Tara faltered for a moment, then forged on. "Mr. Jamison was my lover. We were going to be married after i graduated from college, but somebody killed him!"

Total silence engulfed the room, except for an experimental tapping noise from inside the coffin. Jack, eyes narrowed, turned toward the sound. "Hey, wait a minute --"

At that moment, Buffybot vaulted onto a chair in the far corner, and announced, "He was MY LOVER TOO. We were going to move to his cabin --"

"Condo," Tara put in quickly.

"Condo, and live happily there after I graduated."

Well, okay, Kara thought, as she reached for her purse. That should keep everyone preoccupied, especially if Tara and Bottie could get into the parking lot and start a catfight. Kara doubted very much if she could accomplish her mission without making some noise, so they had to get these people out --

The room erupted. At least a dozen girls leaped forward, waving their arms in a frenzy.

"That's what he told me!"

"He said I was the only one!"

"He promised we'd get married after graduation!"

"He was going to pay my college tuition!"

"He couldn't wait to meet my family after it was legal!"

Tara and Bottie stood there open mouthed, looking dazed.

Behind Kara, barely audible over the roar, Mr. Jamison pounded on the coffin lid. She pulled a stake from her purse and turned on Jack. "Well. Looks like you sired somebody who's been spending a lot of time doing his own reproducing."

Mr. Jamison slammed into the coffin so hard that it jumped, and the lid squealed in protest, but the chaos in the viewing room was so overwhelming only Kara and Jack heard it. As he gaped at the coffin, Jack's eyes suddenly widened so much he resembled an anime character. "He's alive!" Jack screamed. "He's ALIVE!" Arms flailing, the suave Jack climbed over the backs of the nearest girls in a terrified dash that took him right through Tara without him even realizing it. The crowd, busy arguing over who Jamison loved the most, didn't notice.

"Oh," Kara said.

"What happened?"

Kara looked up to see Cheerleader Julie standing before her, a curious look on her face. "What happened to Jack?" Julie repeated. "He always thought he was the bravest guy in the neighborhood."

"Um ... a bee."

Julie cocked her head, then glanced around at the milling girls, some of whom were now having at each other with fists and nails. "A bee, huh? Well, I guess that makes this the liveliest death I've ever seen." Then she smiled. "Although it's about to get much livelier -- slayer." The other girl's face morphed, taking on the all too familiar ridged forehead and sharp fangs.

"Huh," Kara said.

"You're not getting Mr. Jamison," Julie announced. "He promised we'd be together, and we will ... for all eternity." And before Kara could react, Julie used one of those patented cheerleader kicks to knock the stake out of Kara's hand.

"That old guy must have been quite a stud." Kara held her purse by the handle and spun around, letting it slam into Julie's face. The coffin had just begun to open, but Julie was thrown into it, jamming the lid back down.

"Ow! Hey!" Jamison yelled.

"He was younger then. I was his first, all those years ago. He told me so." Using the coffin for leverage, Julie propelled herself forward, but Kara stepped to one side. Julie managed to grab hold of her opponent's arms, and the two girls spun around. "It took me a long time to get back, but I finally did, and I'm claiming him."

"It's time to grow up, Barbie." Kara slammed her knee into the other girl's chin, making her let go, then reached a hand into her purse. "Your teacher moved on to other favorite students, didn't he?"

"He belongs to me!" The vampire moved quickly, pinning Kara's arms so firmly that the slayer was only able to grasp the top object in the purse. In desperation, Kara brought one hand up enough to smack Julie in the face with it.

"Ew! What --"

"Cherry truffle lipgloss, blondie. All over your cheek."

Releasing Kara, Julie stepped back and scrubbed at her face with both hands. "Ohmygod! That doesn't go with my complexion at all!"

"Try this." Julie looked up, just as Kara slammed the second stake into her chest. "Only the popular girl would drop her guard to fix her makeup. Rah rah, Julie." The vampire looked highly pissed for an instant, then exploded into dust.

Realizing she still faced a threat behind her, Kara spun around.

But the coffin was still. Dana stood behind it, a look of triumph on her face. In the middle of the coffin lid, at chest level, a piece of wood had been jammed down until its base was even with the wood of the coffin itself. It was a moment before Kara realized she was looking at the base of one of those ornate candle holders, which had rested on a table at the coffin's end.

"Heart," Dana announced with a grin.

----

Tara was already waiting in the van when the two slayers and the robot clambered inside. The spirit must have clued Giles in that things had not gone entirely as planned, because as soon as the door slammed shut he hit the gas, leaving the three girls jumbled in a pile.

"Move your foot," Kara grumbled to someone. "You're tearing my pantyhose."

"Oh, please." Gaining her footing, Bottie helped the other two up and fell into a seat. "Like anybody was paying attention to your pantyhose." Throwing her hands out, Bottie dramatically intoned, "I miss him SO MUCH!"

Grinning despite herself, Kara pointed an accusing finger at the robot. "You can talk. 'He was MY LOVER!'"

"Tara started it." The girls dissolved into giggles, while Giles got them safely out of the area, then turned into a Dairy Queen.

He put the van into park before turning to look back at them. "I promised you an ice cream if all went well." Then he turned forward again, because Dana had hiked her skirt to tear off the pantyhose.

"Define well," Kara said.

"Two vamps dusted," Tara told her, "Nobody hurt except for our pride, and we got away without being ID'd. I think all went well."

"Indeed," Giles agreed with a small cough. "Quite likely the coffin won't be reopened except by funeral home employees, and people in those positions have learned there's a time not to ask questions."

"So ..." Bottie grinned. "Ice cream!"

Tara gave the robot a gentle smile. "But Bottie, you and I don't eat ice cream."

"No, but we can enjoy watching other people eat it."

So the robot led the way, holding the restaurant door open for the others to get in. But, just as she was about to enter, Kara stumbled to a halt and cried out. "Oh, no!"

The others turned to her with concern. "What is it, Kara?" Giles demanded. "Did we forget something?"

"We sure did," Kara moaned. "A phone number. Jack LIKED ME!"


	3. Four Friends and a Watcher

**FOUR FRIENDS AND A WATCHER**

_Giles considers a unique solution to his organizational problems. _

_(Special thanks to Ainon, my alert and enthusiastic beta.)_

----

I feel as though I should apologize to someone for being so lax in keeping up with my Watcher's journal. But to whom? By default, I seem to have become the leader of this new Watcher's Council, such that it is, so there is no one to whom I'm supposed to report.

Still, I shan't be in this position forever, so I'll continue this journal in the hopes that some future watcher shall find it useful – hopefully while I'm back in England, enjoying a well earned retirement.

One of the reasons I've had little time to write is because there are so few watchers, at the moment. I'm constantly being called on to solve problems or make decisions, and except for what I'm called, the requests have begun to blend together:

"Excuse me, Mr. Giles."

"Hey, G-man!"

"Rupert, have you got a minute?"

"Giles, I need help …"

It was this situation that led to a unique decision I made recently. It had been a rather difficult morning, and I'm afraid I lost my temper with Andrew, who decided to initiate a fire drill after reading some material on Fire Prevention Week. Granted, we are in the upper floors of a high rise, but Andrew neglected to notify anyone beforehand, and forgot that the alarm would also sound for all the other tenants of the building.

It took the better part of the day to calm everyone down, and in the end I sent Andrew off on a rather bogus mission to Indianapolis, for his own safety.

That afternoon, having come to a decision, I left my office and began searching. Eventually I located Kara in the new classroom, but she and several other slayers were finishing a math test. She looked as if she desperately wished to be disturbed, which is one reason why I elected not to.

Instead, I made my way down to the fourteenth floor, and walked into the computer room. There I stopped short at the sight of Buffy Summers sitting on a bench, naked from the waist up. When I say naked, I mean that not only was she not wearing a top, but the skin on her back had been peeled away to allow for wires to be connected to her -- innards.

It was quite disturbing.

"Hello, Mr. Giles!" the Buffybot cried out cheerfully. "I'm getting a tune-up!"

"So you are," I muttered, turning away. "Willow, would you mind terribly covering her up? This is not a nudist colony."

"But Giles, she's just a machine." Willow threw the robot's shirt over its chest, and fixed me with a somewhat leering grin. "You don't want to watch me lube her joints?"

I evaded the question by pretending to clean my glasses, a tactic Willow and her friends saw through years ago. "Buffybot, have you seen Tara?"

The instant I spoke, I regretted asking the question. Willow, turning pale, ducked her head behind the robot, pretending to check its connections to the computer. "Willow, I'm sorry –"

"It's all right, Giles." Willow's voice was muffled, but after a moment she straightened up, looking only a little flushed. "I spoke to her yesterday."

"You did?" I'd been under the impression that Tara McClay's ghost had been avoiding Willow, who was still very much in the infatuation stage with her lover, Kennedy.

"Um, she was practicing lifting things in the kitchen, and we kind of startled each other."

Buffybot turned to give her a curious look. "You talked?"

"Yeah, we had a nice talk."

The robot reached out to gently squeeze Willow's hand, then turned back to me. "I haven't seen her today. But whenever Kara and I are busy, she usually stays close to Dana."

"And how is Dana doing?" I asked, wanting to change the subject.

"She's sane," Buffybot assured me, with a nod of her head.

Willow rolled her eyes, and smiled at me. "If we see Tara, we'll tell her you're looking for her."

"Yes … thank you, Willow." I turned to hurry out, worried that I had opened old wounds with Willow. The truth is, I've wondered for a long time whether there was anything I could have done that might have prevented Tara's death. Stayed in Sunnydale, perhaps interrupted the chain of events that led to so much pain. Water under the bridge, I know.

As the door closed behind me, I heard the Buffybot say, "Can I take my shirt back off? The breeze feels good."

Breeze? What kind of updating has Willow been doing on that robot's systems?

Dana was nowhere to be found, so I resorted to calling for her over the intercom system. I don't like doing that: it seems too impersonal, not to mention the fact that it tends to start rumors flying about why individuals are being called in. But slayers are only issued pagers while they're in the field, so I had little alternative.

I'd passed on Xander's offer to build me an office on the new floor, and stayed where I'd been since we moved to Chicago. This office is more like a study, with windows on one side overlooking the Chicago skyline, and windows on the opposite wall that opened onto the library. A real library, with books, as a library should be. I'd positioned my desk so that, when sitting behind it, I can see the rows of volumes, and the study tables with their lamps and reference books. A relaxing view.

But I rarely have time to enjoy it, and sure enough, it was only minutes before Dana walked through the door, looking suspiciously around her as she entered. "Oh, Dana, good. Would you please try to locate Tara for me? I need to speak with her."

Until I spoke, Dana looked almost normal. Kara had talked her into what the slayers considered to be normal clothes – stone washed jeans and a purple Kentucky University sweatshirt, in this case – and gotten her to brush and tie back her hair. No one could convince her to get it cut; apparently barber day was one of her more traumatic experiences in the asylum.

But as soon as I asked about Tara, Dana got that deer in the headlights look that had been so common when she first came to the Watcher's Headquarters. "Tara's not real."

Pulling my glasses off, I tried to rub the tension from my temples. "Dana, we've had this discussion before. Tara is one of the apparitions who _is _real – not like Joan of Arc, or Lothos. You, Kara, and the Buffybot have been spending time with her, so I thought one of you could get in touch with her."

"Oh." Dana nodded brightly. "Well, she's here." She pointed over my right shoulder, then whirled around and flounced through the door, closing it behind her.

I, also, whirled around. I confess I jumped a bit to see a tall young woman standing a few feet away, by the closest outside window.

"Sorry," Tara said, although she was rather obviously hiding a smile behind the sleeve of that rainbow colored peasant shirt she liked so much. "I've been practicing being corporeal so much that now I have to practice to keep from being seen."

In other words, she'd practiced by sneaking into my office, but I didn't mention that. "Please, sit. So, you're doing better, then?"

In answer, she reached forward to pick up a file from my desk, waved it around, then set it back down before taking a chair on the other side of the desk. "I can interact fully with the real world. Yesterday I pushed Kennedy down the stairs."

"You _what?"_

"Just kidding!" She held her hands up, and this time didn't even bother trying to hide her smile. "You know I'm okay with everything, Giles."

And so she had unwittingly brought up one of the subjects we needed to speak about. "So it would seem, Tara, and yet – and I mean no disrespect in saying this – you're still here."

She regarded me with a slight frown.

"A spirit usually crosses over, when they have no unfinished business. You've helped Willow; accepted Kennedy; even spent time with the two of them. I can't help wondering why you haven't gone on to, ah … eternal rest."

"Oh." Resting an elbow on my desk – an action she couldn't have taken only weeks ago – Tara rubbed her chin. "I don't know … I like it here. I like being useful."

"I see." And I did. I'd enjoyed my retirement back in England, when I'd believed Buffy and her friends didn't need me anymore. Before Tara's murder precipitated my return. However, within days of arriving at my family home in England, I'd begun having strange feelings of … dissatisfaction. Planning a book on my experiences made me feel better, but there had still been that vague discontentment. A feeling, I realize now, that I wasn't being useful.

"So …" I watched Tara carefully. "You're planning to stay?"

"Um … if it's all right …"

"Oh, of course, of course. In fact, if being useful is something you desire, I have a proposition you might be interested in."

She straightened up, looking interested, indeed.

"I have very little time for field duty these days. In point of fact, I have to give credit to the former Watcher's Council – I had no idea how much time and effort went into administering the organization, and that was with just one slayer."

She nodded. As her back was to the library, she didn't notice when the door that led from there to the hallway opened. No one came through.

"Now there are many dozens of slayers. As if that wasn't enough, potential slayers are still being born, and now they become slayers at puberty. Some, through various means, are coming here, while others stay in their homes. In either case, they need training and direction, and monitoring."

I tried not to let on that I was keeping half an eye on that door, which had suddenly opened and closed again. After a moment I realized someone must be crawling into the library, below my line of sight.

"Xander has been effective in seeking out and establishing a network with all these slayers, but he doesn't have time to become watcher in the traditional sense. Richard would make an excellent watcher, but because we have so many very young slayers, and he has a teaching license, he's now devoting his time to looking after their schooling."

The door opened a third time, then closed firmly. I had a pretty good idea who the secret visitors were, and tried to ignore them while staying on track.

"Andrew and Jason have been very helpful, but quite frankly, they're both too immature to act as watchers. That means not only do I need watchers, but I also need to train new watchers."

Tara nodded, and seemed to be paying rapt attention. How unfortunate that all the young females in the building didn't act the same. "Robin Wood has agreed to become a watcher, and Dawn will be a very good watcher, indeed, but they're only two people. This leaves me in the position of having the older slayers mentor the younger ones, but –"

"Don't forget Willow," Tara interrupted. "And Bottie, she's programmed with lots of knowledge."

I caught a flurry of movement in the library, just outside the door to my office, and frowned. They'd done an admirable job of stealth up until then. "Of course not, Tara, how could I? But the robot, for all her knowledge, can be …" I paused, searching for words.

"Yes, sometimes she's …" Tara also paused, and waved a hand in the air as if trying to catch the right words. Behind her, a flash of something caught my eye, then disappeared below the window sill again.

"Well. I have developed a plan, in which a group of younger slayers will be mentored by an older one, and the older ones will, in turn, report to a watcher. This will leave teaching more in the hands of the slayers themselves, and who knows the job better?"

"That sounds like a great plan," Tara said, enthusiastically.

"Well, there will be some adjustments, of course. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that you might like to take a position as watcher."

I'd expected her to have realized where I was going by then, but apparently not – her jaw dropped, and her hands fluttered to her face. "M-me?"

An abrupt, barely audible, burst of noise came from next door.

"Yes, of course. You're knowledgeable, patient, trusted by the girls, and you have the advantage that you can watch them and their enemies without being seen. And you did say you wish to be useful."

"I – I don't know what to say."

"Specifically, I'd like your group to include Kara, Dana, and the Robot – ah, Buffybot. It – she – has also expressed the desire to be useful, and as she was programmed to be a slayer, a slayer she shall be. But that gives you unusual difficulties – these aren't your normal slayers, if such a thing exists."

"No." Tara looked at me with glittering eyes, and I suddenly found myself wondering if ghosts can cry. "But … do you really think I can do this?"

"Of course I do. I've seen your work." And then I smiled, because I knew she would say yes. "Besides, I recently had an offer from Roger Windham-Price to come out of retirement as a watcher, and I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out than work with him again."

Tara vaulted to her feet, ran around the desk and, to my surprise, gave me a hug. Her skin felt cool, but otherwise it would be impossible to tell she wasn't alive.

Actually, now that I think on it, she's very much alive, in every way that matters.

"Do you mind if I go find the others, and tell them?" Tara said when she'd released me.

She hadn't seen the three pairs of eyes that peeked into the window at the moment she'd jumped up. I simply nodded. "I don't believe," I said, "that finding them is going to be a problem."


	4. Four Friends and a Field Trip

_New Watcher Tara Takes her Charges on Their First Mission as a Team._

FOUR FRIENDS AND A FIELD TRIP

Tara stood on a small rise, her face turned toward a park that stretched out, empty and dark. "This is the scenario: A girl has been possessed by a spirit. The spirit is evil, but the body it resides in is good, so this is a capture. Not, I repeat not, a kill."

Startled, Dana turned to stare at her. "Not?"

"Not." Tara looked into the slayer's eyes, making sure she had Dana's complete attention. "No harm is to come to the girl. Understood?"

For the first time since they'd gotten onto the van, headed for this suburban Chicago park in the dead of night, Dana looked uncertain. "No head? No heart?"

"Capture only."

"Understood," Dana confirmed, looking crestfallen.

Tara nodded, and scanned the park again. Beside her, Kara brushed windblown hair from her face, and shivered. Dana didn't seem to notice the cold or the heavy mist, but the Buffybot shuffled over, trying to make her attempt to shield Kara from the wind go unnoticed. Their heavy jackets helped only a little against the November weather, and would be a hindrance in a fight – which was exactly why Tara thought this trip would be good experience. They might have to fight in any weather, after all.

If she concentrated, Tara could feel the biting wind – so she didn't.

"She's wandering around here in the park, somewhere," she told the others. "The spirit that possessed her is powerful, and dangerous. Don't trust it, and don't underestimate it. Now, go."

"Should have brought some rope and duct tape," Kara muttered as she, Dana, and Bottie headed down into the park.

"No!" Dana's voice had turned suddenly shrill, but in an instant she controlled it and whispered, "No duct tape. It damages the skin."

"Right," Kara agreed, just as quietly.

Turning herself invisible, Tara followed a few steps behind her charges, watching their moves carefully. The party stopped at the crest of a second, smaller rise, and Bottie make a careful scan of the area, as Tara thought she should have done earlier. "I'm on infrared," Bottie told the others. "No sign of anyone. Should we spread out?"

_No_, Tara thought, but she said nothing.

"Only a little," Kara suggested. "Stay within sight of each other. Bottie, you stay in the middle and keep scanning." She'd make a good leader someday, if she survived, but she didn't have much experience yet in strategy and tactics.

_If she survived?_ Tara smiled despite herself. Tara hadn't survived, and now found herself a watcher. Had Giles realized how much leadership that job really entailed, despite its title? Or was he just a natural at it, as Kara would be?

The three stepped further into the park. There were few lights here, and even with enhanced slayer vision, it was hard to see anything. The glow of distant city lights illuminated low clouds, but that served only to show the outline of bare tree limbs, whipping back and forth in the breeze. That would cover the sound of movements, and the trees, along with a scattering of playground equipment and picnic tables, gave plenty of cover.

By the time they'd passed the first few trees, the three slayers – for that's what Bottie was, no matter her origin – had put about fifty feet between each other. But they were being very careful, watching their flanks and each other, as Bottie kept an eye out for the warmth of a body somewhere ahead.

A particularly strong wind gust caused a din of rubbing branches above and blowing leaves at ground level, as well as shifting, bobbing shadows from the distant security lights. The girls paused for a moment, then, after glancing at each other for reassurance, pressed on.

Behind them, Tara almost screamed in surprise when a black clad figure appeared beside her, crouching on the ground and using one hand to maintain balance. Where --?

Tara looked up. She was directly below a tree that the slayers, stuck in the mode of two dimensional thinking, had just passed.

The figure hurried toward Bottie, as if taking a brisk stroll in the park. It was a tall, slim girl – that much was clear, even though her black slacks and jacket were relatively well padded – and there was an odd bulge on her hood covered face, where the eyes should be.

Without a pause, the intruder brushed back Buffybot's hair and pinched at a place on the back of the robot's neck. Without a word, Bottie keeled over like a falling tree, landing face first in the grass.

"Bottie!" Kara and Dana bounded toward their friend's still form at top speed, then sighted the girl standing between them and veered toward her, instead. Seeing what was coming, Tara winced and closed her eyes.

As a result she heard, rather than saw, the bone crushing impact when the woman in black dove to one side, leaving the slayers, in mid jump, helpless to do anything but slam into each other. When Tara opened her eyes Dana had already jumped to her feet, an ugly expression on her face. Kara rolled over and pushed herself onto hands and knees, then jerked away when she realized she was kneeling on Bottie.

By then Dana was on their adversary in a blur of movement, despite the black-clad girl's attempts to evade her. "Capture, Dana!" Kara yelled, and Dana reluctantly dodged behind her opponent, pinning the girl's arms to her sides.

The girl tried to kick, but Dana skillfully avoided feet clad in black sneakers. "I captured her – now what?"

Kara, still trying to throw off the effect of her midair collision, shook her head, then winced. "I guess – look out!"

A blinding arc of light threw the surroundings into relief. Dana, eyes wide, arched her back and neck, appearing for an instant as if she'd reached the climax of a ballet. Then she fell to the ground, quivering.

The woman in black stood there, a small object in her hand, and turned to regard Kara.

"That's it, sister," Kara said through gritted teeth. "You're going down."

Her opponent dodged, then spun, then struck out with fists and feet, to no avail. Once Kara was in close, she knocked the stun gun away, then tripped the girl and landed on her, pinning her hands above her head. It took some doing, considering her opponent was almost a head taller than her, but Kara managed to catch both slim wrists in one of her hands. She used her other hand to quickly search for more weapons, while pinning the struggling form down with her body weight.

"There," Kara gasped. "You and I are going to be very close until Dana can get up and turn Bottie back on, then all three of us are going to make sure you're nice and secure until we can get that little devil out of you. What do you have to say about that?"

"Your coat is on fire."

Tara had clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, as she watched a small tongue of flame work its way up the left arm of Kara's coat. Now Kara craned her neck, saw the blaze, and tried to slap it out, but her right hand was busy holding the girl's arms down. No matter how much she flailed, her left hand wouldn't reach. "Oh, bother."

"Better let me up," the woman in black warned. "We'll burn together. Remember, you can't kill me."

"Fine." Kara leaped up, but before the girl could move Kara grabbed the stun gun, jammed it against the girl's torso, and applied a jolt that left her opponent helpless. "Stunning, isn't it?"

Kara stopped, dropped, and rolled the flames out, then hurried over to hit Bottie's on switch. The robot and Dana slowly began to move, unconsciously imitating each other as they rose to a sitting position and began rubbing areas that didn't seem to be working very well.

Satisfied her friends were recovering, Kara began to dash back toward the woman in black, then stopped short when she saw Tara standing by the still form. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Watching."

"Yeah? Well, Giles manned a crossbow, every once in awhile."

Tara smiled at the memories. "Yes, but he kept getting knocked unconscious, too."

"Not a problem with you, watcher babe." With a sour expression, Kara crouched over their target, stun gun at ready.

"You were never in serious danger except for when she set you on fire, and in my defense I didn't see the lighter, either."

"Some ghost you are."

By now Bottie had walked over, a little stiffly, to stand behind Kara. "I can't believe I missed all the fun," she said, looking greatly disappointed.

"It wasn't all that much fun." Dana still oddly resembled Bottie as she shuffled over to them. "Take off the mask. Let's see her."

Kara obediently reached down, but warned, "Remember, it's not her – it's the evil spirit inside."

Dana was gently prodding her bruised ribs. "Then she should get her ass kicked for letting the little devil in."

The mask came off easily enough, and when it did a flood of shiny brown hair flowed out, pinned only by the strap that held night vision goggles on. Tara had trouble not laughing as the girl came to life, pulled the goggles off, and sat up.

"That was fun," Dawn Summers said with a wide grin. "Except for the getting electrocuted part."

"Hi, Dawny!" Bottie said with a little wave. "You're my little bit sister and you're mucho cute."

"But –" Dana said.

Giving up her attempt not to, Tara allowed herself a giggle.

"How did you learn all that?" Kara demanded. "You're not a slayer."

"I've spent time studying the best," Dawn told her. "Heck, I learned a lot just watching Buffy and Faith demolish our house when they were fighting each other."

"But –" Dana said.

"Plus, I've been taking lessons. The tough part was trying not to freeze to death while waiting for you guys to show up."

The three slayers looked at each other. Dawn looked back at them, still smiling.

"I did tell you this was a training session," Tara finally reminded them.

"But –" Dana shook her head, then wailed, "But I thought it was a training session with a real bad guy!"

"That wasn't real enough for you?" Kara asked, as she rubbed the knot forming on her forehead.

"Come on, let's get back to the van," Tara told them. "We have a lot to talk about, and we might as well do it where it's warm."

Grumbling a little, the slayers headed back the way they came. "I hate debriefing," Tara heard Dana mumble.

Tara reached down to help Dawn up, but when the younger Summers got to her feet she held onto Tara's hand. "Wow. You're really real, just like I heard."

"Yep." They trailed after the others, walking side by side. She hadn't had much time to talk to Dawn, Tara realized. "Almost as real as ever, except, you know – dead."

"I don't care about that." Dawn took Tara's arm, snuggling up against her, and even though it let the cold air in, Tara let herself feel. As if reading her mind, Dawn said, "Everybody's cold tonight. It's great to have you back."

Gesturing toward the three girls in front of them, Tara said, "They may not feel that way, once we're through telling them what they did wrong."

But Dawn just shrugged. "Get a pair of glasses, polish them a lot, and speak with an accent. They'll love you as much as I do."


	5. Dana's Secret

**_Part one of a miniseries in which the Four Friends have four secrets. In the first, Dana makes a secret phone call._**

_**Special thanks to Anon for her beta abilities, and to keswindhover, from whom I stole the idea that the Buffybot has a peculiar form of identification …**_

----

Dana picked up the phone in Giles' office. She puzzled for a moment over the strange noise coming from it – this must be the dial tone she'd heard people talk about – then she double checked the number in the Head Watcher's address book.

It had taken her days to find a moment when the office was unoccupied at the same time that she was alone. Her roommate, Kara, was a light sleeper, and Giles tended to work in the office late into the night. But Kara was off on a mission to Vermont, and Giles had retired early, and it turned out he didn't lock his office.

Dana slowly dialed the number, speaking out loud to make sure she got it right. As she did, she wondered again if she should have just asked for permission to make the call, but her gut told her Giles wouldn't approve.

"_We've sorry. You must first dial one when calling this number."_

"Oh." She scanned the open pages again. There was no mention of dialing one. "That's not fair," she murmured, punching in the number again.

"Wolfram and Hart, how may I direct your call?"

Despite knowing someone else would answer, Dana almost dropped the phone. Her age had been in the single digits when she last used a telephone, and she remembered little of the experience. To her, it was miraculous to hear a voice from across a continent.

"Hello?"

"Um … are you Harmony?"

"Yes …" The voice, which had sounded reasonably friendly before, turned instantly suspicious. "Do I know you?"

"No. I'm a slayer."

A little "Eek!" emerged from the phone, followed by a fumbling sound. "I'm reformed, I swear! I only drink animal blood! They test me and everything!"

Tilting her head, Dana considered that. Then she gasped. "You're a vampire?"

After an instant of silence, Harmony said, "No. Of course not. I was kidding. We kid a lot here."

"At an evil law firm?"

"We're not _always_ evil. We donated to the Red Cross. We do pro bono work."

"I'm not pro Bono," Dana mused. "I don't get his music."

"Okay, are _you_ kidding?"

"I need you to connect me with someone," Dana said, deciding they were getting into a topic she didn't understand.

"Oh, okay." Harmony sounded greatly relieved. "Well, this isn't the general switchboard line, but I'm sure I can track someone down if they haven't left for the day."

Dana had forgotten about that time zone thing. How could it be one time in Chicago, and another time in Los Angeles? Real life was very confusing. "I don't know his last name. Most people call him Spike."

Silence.

"If it helps, he used to be called William. Have you heard of him?"

"Uh … yes, he … works here. Who may I say is calling?"

"I'm –" Dana's forehead wrinkled, and her grip on the receiver tightened. What was her last name? When had she forgotten? "Just tell him a slayer's on the phone."

"One moment, please."

As she waited, Dana thought hard. She could remember little about her time in the asylum. She could remember all too much about the time before that. She could remember the names of several dozen slayers, alive and dead. Robin's last name was Wood. Dawn's last name was Summers. Richard's last name was Philips. Buffybot didn't have one, but everybody said robots don't have last names, unless the serial number on her butt counted. What if they made a lot of robots, and ran out of first names for them? Would they have to give them –

"Slayer?"

From the moment she'd decided to do this, Dana had been reminding herself that she wasn't the slayer in China, or the one in New York. She remembered what happened all too well, and she knew Spike was different now – he'd been trying to help her. But for a moment none of that mental preparation mattered, and she was battered by a wave of blind rage. "William the Bloody," she muttered, her body shaking.

"Hullo? Who is this?"

"I'm Dana. I'm not Nikki. I'm Dana." She forced her breathing to slow.

"Bloody hell."

"I cut your hands off once. Do you remember?" She remembered. Sometimes, late at night, that nightmare crowded its way through the others.

"A person doesn't forget something like that, luv. What do you want? Going after the legs next?" His voice had turned harsh, and even though she'd expected a reaction like this, Dana winced.

"I called to apologize."

"You –"

"Tara told me that it's important to try to make things better. To make up for what you've done wrong."

"Tara?" Spike's voice changed, becoming gentle and strangely sad. "Tara's gone, Dana. She died, like the rest of the voices you hear."

"Yes, I know," Dana told him, trying not to let the impatience creep into her voice. "But she's also right. I did bad things. I don't have any money, and I don't really know anything I can do for anyone, but at least I can tell them I know it was a mistake, and I'm sorry."

"Ah." Spike was silent for a moment. People often paused when they talked to Dana, as though deciding on the right thing to say. "So, you're in Chicago with the other slayers?"

"Yes."

"Good." Like Harmony, he sounded relieved. "And you called all the way to L.A. to apologize."

"Yes. I know that doesn't make it all right, but it's really important. I won't kill anyone who doesn't deserve it again, I promise. Or cut their arms off."

Another pause. "And you want me to –"

"Forgive me." She waited, using her free hand to nervously tug on the leg of her pajamas.

"Right, then. I'll forgive you, conditionally."

"Conditionally?" Although she'd joined the younger slayers in taking lessons from Robin and Richard – which she enjoyed more than the other girls did – she wasn't sure of the meaning of that word.

"The conditions are that you listen to the others, don't harm innocents, and most important, stay the hell away from me and mine. Got it?"

"Okay." She thought she'd been doing a pretty good job of those three things, anyway. "Got it."

"Fine. I forgive you. Go forth, and sin no more."

"Thank you," Dana whispered. "Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think … do you think people can really be forgiven? I mean, can someone who's done as many bad things as we have ever do enough good things to make up for it?"

"Absolution." Spike sounded far away, and not just in the flesh.

Not knowing what the word mean, Dana remained silent.

"I hope so, luv. But I can tell you this: Just doing good things doesn't help. You can't fight along with the good guys just because it's fun, or to keep from getting into trouble, or to impress a girl. You've got to mean it."

Dana wondered why she would ever want to impress a girl.

"Hell, I just started, myself – took me awhile to figure that out. I've got a long, long way to go. You're better off than me, 'cause you're not entirely at fault for the things you did. But yeah – you've still got to make it up."

"Thank you, Spike."

"And try not to scare Harmony anymore."

"I won't."

After hanging up, Dana slowly made her way through the dark hallways, feeling the cool floor on her bare feet. There was school tomorrow, and training, and time with her friends. She thought a lot about what Spike had said, and decided this was a good place to start making up for all the things she'd done wrong.

The nightmares didn't come, that night.


	6. Buffybot's Secret

**_Part two of a miniseries in which the Four Friends have four secrets. In the second, Buffybot investigates Christmas._**

_**Special thanks to Anon for her beta abilities.**_

----

BUFFYBOT'S SECRET

It all started when the Buffybot realized Christmas was coming.

It was hard to miss, what with all the decorations people began putting up around the Watcher's Headquarters. (Some of the slayers had started calling it the Slayer's Headquarters, since they outnumbered the watchers by about twenty to one.)

Not to mention that big snowstorm that blew through Chicago in early December. Even Giles had been affected: Bottie caught him humming "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas", although when he realized it, he clamped his mouth shut and turned red.

But Bottie didn't really know much about Christmas. Vampires didn't much like that particular holiday, what with all its Christian imagery -- rumor had it that once, at a Christmas party in which the religious spirit was especially strong, a vampire had been toasted by a pine wreath. That didn't seem likely, but when she'd asked Spike about it he got mad and changed the subject.

Spike was the reason Bottie didn't know about Christmas. She'd been created for him, and for the most part her original programming contained only what he thought was necessary. So, no Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Easter, although she knew a great deal about British football and beer.

So she went into the computer lab one night and Googled Christmas. Even at her rate of learning, it took over three hours before she was satisfied that she had a pretty good idea of what Christmas was all about, and she spent six more hours surfing around, taking in history, tradition, and TV specials. She liked the Charlie Brown one, the best.

Finally she shut the computer down and stretched, not only because she was programmed to but because her joints really were stiff. It was 2:32 a.m., so she was careful not to make too much noise as she padded through the dark hallway.

Much to her surprise, she saw someone else coming the other way, a dark haired female dressed in Hello Kitty pajamas. "Hi, Dana!" Bottie called, keeping her volume turned low.

"Hi, Bottie." Dana looked a little evasive, as if she'd been doing something she shouldn't have, but Buffybot knew the other girl often wondered the halls at night, when the nightmares waked her. "What are you doing up so late?"

"Research. Say, how did you know I wasn't Buffy Classic?"

Dana smiled. "Buffy classic?"

"I'm trying to be original."

Dana considered for a moment, then shrugged. "Buffy wouldn't be up this late -- at least, not inside. And she wouldn't be in the computer lab."

"Oh." Turning, Bottie accompanied Dana on down the corridor, and gave her friend a sidelong look. Dana didn't have that haunted expression she got when she'd been having the nightmares, but still ... "Kara's still in Vermont, isn't she? Would you like me to sleep with you tonight?"

"No, thank you." Stopping at her door, the slayer turned and gave Bottie a hug. "I'm all right, and you need to charge up." Dana had the strange ability to tell when the robot was ready for a recharge.

"You're right -- well, have a good night, and Merry Christmas!"

Halfway through the door, Dana froze. "Merry Christmas?"

"Oh -- I guess you haven't really celebrated Christmas either, have you?" Bottie wondered if she'd committed the cardinal sin of bringing back bad memories.

"Not since I was real little." Dana looked down for a moment, then brought her head up with that expression she got when trying to be brave. "But we can celebrate Christmas together this year, can't we?"

"Yep! What do you want for Christmas?"

"Me?" The slayer puzzled on that for a moment, then shook her head. "I don't really need anything. Just to be here with my friends, I guess. And fudge." She gave Bottie a little wave, then disappeared into her room.

Buffybot's "room" was just off the computer lab, a place the size of a large closet that contained everything she needed -- a slab to lay on, a power coupling, and a terminal for getting computer updates. Usually she used her downtime to defrag her hard drive and run maintenance software, but this time she elected to stay on, pondering Christmas, and other questions she hadn't considered before.

----

It turned out to be for the best that Bottie didn't spend the night in Dana's room. Sometime in the early morning hours Kara, Rona, and Tara returned from their assignment in Vermont, and when Bottie arose she learned Rona had been kept overnight in the medical room.

"You look terrible," Bottie told Kara when she joined her and Dana at the breakfast table.

"Hello to you, too," Kara grunted, before going back to spooning grits into her mouth. Her hair was a tangled mess, she sported a bruise on one cheek, and a large bandage covered the left side of her neck.

"You got mucus all over your sheets," Dana complained. "It smells like cat pee in there. Couldn't you have showered before you left Vermont?"

"It wasn't mucus -- I washed the mucus off as soon as we killed the Angorrah Demon, so it wouldn't burn my skin any more. That's just the after smell, like a skunk."

"I've never smelled a skunk," Dana countered, "and I'm sure going to avoid them now."

"But Rona's all right?" Bottie asked.

Kara nodded. "She got a little overspray in the eyes, but Giles says her vision will come back fine. Tara got sprayed too -- do you know, she actually felt it for a minute? It was so strange: She screamed and disappeared, and it took her fifteen minutes before she could come back. Why would a ghost be effected like that?"

"She's more than a ghost, now," Dana said with a frown. "She's something else."

"Well, I'll bet she wished she was just a ghost again yesterday." Kara pushed her plate away. "You know, when I heard we were going after an Angorrah Demon, I kept imagining some big fuzzy mohair monster that we could just unravel like a sweater. Turns out it could spray this -- stuff -- twenty feet."

"Mucus," Bottie supplied. "Very caustic."

"And where were you when we needed you?"

Bottie felt bad about that, even though she'd been left behind because the others had to catch an emergency flight to Vermont, and there'd only been room for two. She momentarily imagined Tara riding on a wing of the Southwest Airlines jet, but shrugged the image off. No one really knew how Tara got around, now that she was much more solid than the average spirit. Somehow she'd not only managed to get to Vermont, but she'd brought weapons with her.

"Well, it ended okay." Kara patted Bottie's arm, apparently taking the robot's silence for self recrimination. "Rona's going to be all right, and the demon's in three pieces, and I'll change my bed covers after breakfast."

"Use Fabreeze," Dana suggested.

Taking that as the end of the conversation, Bottie learned toward Kara eagerly. "So, what do you want for Christmas?"

Kara looked surprised. "I don't know. I got the iPod last Christmas, and I'm here with all of you, doing something important ... what else do I need? Maybe the 'Bewitched' DVD."

"Don't mention that around Willow," Dana warned. "She hates that show, just like I hate 'Saw'."

----

Robin gave Kara the day off from classes, and despite her assurances that she was all right Kara didn't feel up to hitting the gym, so Bottie spent the day with her in the lounge, playing Sims2. They were there when Tara hurried in just after lunch, and glanced quickly around. "Has anybody seen Kennedy?"

Vi, who was reading "Mists of Avalon" in one corner of the room, glanced up. "She's in the gym, teaching defensive tactics to the newbies." Vi was supposed to be teaching that class, but the cast encased foot she'd propped up on the coffee table made the reason for her absence obvious. She'd thrown a sweeping kick at a vampire, and hit a fire hydrant, instead.

"Thanks." But before Tara could leave, Buffybot called to her.

"Do you know who I am?"

Tara gave her a blank stare. "You're Bottie."

"How do you know?"

Now Tara looked at her as if she'd asked the dumbest question in the world. "You're with Kara."

"Oh. Wait, one more thing!" Tara had already moved back into the hallway, so Bottie hurried to catch up with her. "I wanted to ask you about Christmas -- oh, wait. Do you celebrate Christmas?"

Tara smiled. "Of course I do."

"But you were a wicca, and ... and now you're a ghost ..." Bottie paused, trying to decide if she was intruding into forbidden areas. The whole afterlife question was so confusing. "I just mean, since it's a Christian holiday, I thought you might not observe it."

"There are many mansions in Heaven, Bottie." Now Tara's smile became a little wistful, as if she was thinking about something far away. "Who knows? There may even be one for you."

That brought Bottie up short. She'd known that she couldn't exist forever -- she was mechanical, and no mechanical thing lasted forever, even with the skills of Willow and Andrew behind her maintenance. But she'd never considered the possibility that there might be anything beyond the end of her physical life.

She had enough questions to chew over as it was, so she decided to put that one away for now. "What do you want for Christmas?"

Tara shook her head. "I don't need anything for Christmas, Bottie. Just to be here, with all of you."

----

Buffybot had been programmed to think she -- and by extension, the original Buffy -- was very materialistic. As a rule, the other slayers did pay attention to what they wore, and their hair, and their makeup. But, as she wandered the headquarters asking questions, she discovered most of the people here hadn't made themselves a Christmas list. Many were working on what to get for their friends, but as a group they operated at a higher plane, where they were concerned with defending the world, and surviving while they did it. That left out a lot of the smaller things -- perfumes, jewelry, other accessories. Music and books seemed to top the list, for those few who'd been able to wheedle such lists out of their friends.

Of course, Bottie couldn't exactly go shopping, anyway. She wasn't a salaried worker -- Giles had offered her pay, but she'd rejected it under the theory that as long as she was supplied with power, maintenance and something to do, she had no needs. Now she was starting to regret that decision.

"Hi, Bottie."

Lost in thought, Bottie hadn't seen Xander come into the computer lab. She leaped up and gave him a hug. "Xander! I thought you were in Africa!"

"Came home for Christmas. And for hugs -- all sorts of yummy female hugs around here."

"Thank you for calling me female! But how did you know I wasn't Buffy One?"

He blinked. "You're so ... bouncy."

"Bouncy?"

"Bouncy. Um, energetic, chipper, lively -- like a Mexican jumping bean, only prettier."

"Thanks, I guess. So, Xander, what do you want for Christmas?"

He grinned. "A plane ticket to -- oh, wait, I already got that, and here I am. So, my present came early."

Although not unexpected, the answer irritated Bottie. "That's what everyone says, but it doesn't really help me. I mean, what can I do to get presents for everyone? In a way, this is my first Christmas, and I want to give people what they want. But even if I had money, all they seem to want is to be together."

Xander plopped into a nearby seat, and paused to consider the problem. "Well ... you could make something for everyone."

"Make something?"

"Remember last year, when Giles showed up with all those fancy stakes with the slayers' names on them? Something like that."

Make something. But what everyone wanted, it seemed, was to be together. How could she make that?

"Bottie?"

To be together. As a present. A made present. There was a possibility ...

"Bottie?"

Startled, Buffybot looked at Xander, and realized she was no longer standing straight. She'd leaned against the nearest desk, arms crossed, head tilted to one side as she thought through her idea. "Oh. Sorry, Xander, did you say something?"

Standing, Xander approached her with the attitude of a man who'd just seen a UFO. "Bottie, I could swear I just saw a gleam in your eye. A ... spark."

But she ignored that, her mind skipping ahead to all that had to be done. "Xander, do you believe in miracles?"

"Huh? Uh ... yeah. Yeah. I do."

"How would you like to help me perform one?"

She explained her idea. By the time she was done, Xander's eyes had glazed over. "We'd have to hook you up to an extension cord. Because, even with my help, you'll have to work night and day to get this done in three weeks."

Bottie just grinned. "I love a challenge."

----

When Bottie and Xander entered the shop, they found Jason already there, carefully sharpening a battle ax. The young blonde man glanced up, then smiled widely. "Xander! It's great to have a little extra testosterone around here. Hi, Bottie."

Bottie stopped short, hands on hips. "How did you know it was me?"

Jason looked puzzled. "You look just like Buffy, only more roboty."

Before Bottie could protest, Xander rested a hand on her shoulder. "So, Jason, what are you up to?"

"Oh, just a little maintenance." Jason's father, a marine veteran, survivalist, and conspiracy theorist, had trained Jason to use and repair just about every weapon known to man, before they had a little falling out involving vampires, demons, and a destroyed coffee shop. "Rona bounced her ax off a steel post _and_ a concrete block wall, so a little sharpening was in order. Guess she was having a bad slay day."

"Yeah, I heard." Xander was glancing around the shop, and Bottie realized he was figuring out what equipment and supplies they would need. "What about Kara's sword?"

"Ruined. It looks like a 1963 Voltzwagon left in a swamp."

Jason, Buffybot realized, would make a very useful addition to their project. "Jason, how good are you with your hands?"

Jason dropped the ax and jumped back, staring at the robot with wide eyes.

"She means," Xander put in, "how good are you with using tools?"

"Oh!" Red faced, Jason crouched down to pick up the weapon. "Pretty good, I guess. Why?"

Bottie looked at Xander, who nodded. "Three weeks until Christmas," he reminded her. "We'll need the help."

"You're right. Jason ... you're about to become Santa's little helper."

Jason just stared.

----

There were two more thing that had to be done, so, while Xander and Jason started gathering supplies, Bottie hurried to the classroom. Richard Philips sat behind his desk grading papers, shaking his head at something he read on one of them.

"Richard?"

"Hi, Bottie. What can I do for you?"

He hadn't even looked up. She sounded just like Buffy, didn't she? "I need a picture of everyone."

Now Richard did look up. "In the world?"

"No, I mean all of us. Didn't you take everyone's picture at the beginning of the year?"

Smiling, he slid his computer keyboard out from under his desktop and typed something into it. "I know what you meant, and yes, it's up to date." He slid a disk into the computer. "What do you need it for?"

"A special project."

"A Christmas project?"

"I can't say."

"Ah." Richard sat back and crossed his arms. "You know, after my wife died I gave up celebrating Christmas, for a few years."

"Why?"

"When people are grieving, they do stupid things. Finally I realized that if she'd been there, she would have smacked me, so when Kara was three I dug the decorations out and started all over again." He pulled the disk out and handed it to her. "Nothing's more important than family."

For reasons she couldn't understand, Bottie leaned forward and kissed Richard's forehead.

"Have fun, Bottie. I'll see you later." Richard bent back over the papers, still smiling.

A few minutes later Bottie found Giles on the phone, looking as if he wasn't in a very good mood.

"I understand what you're saying, Angel," Giles said into the receiver, after gesturing Bottie in and holding one finger up. "But the fact remains, somebody did place a long distance call from Watcher's Headquarters to Wolfram and Hart, and that naturally concerns me."

He listened for a moment, then shook his head. "No, our lines aren't recorded. I've been making discreet inquiries, of course, but no one admits to making the call. The worst part is, it seems to have originated from my office, at about 2:15 on the morning of December third ..."

The time and date jogged Bottie's memory, and she realized that was about the time she'd finished her research into Christmas. About the time, come to think of it, when she'd encountered Dana in the hallway ...

"No, I don't think that's funny. You wouldn't either, if someone called the Watcher's Council from your personal phone in the wee hours ... well, what about Spike? No, I don't know why anyone here would call Spike, but he's the only other person that might have a connection."

Dana wouldn't call Spike, Bottie thought. Would she?

"Very well. Let me know what you find out, would you?" Giles hung up the phone and sat back, then glanced up at his visitor. "And what can I do for you?"

She started to wish him a Merry Christmas, then realized this was her chance to fool someone into thinking she was the real Buffy. She tried to make her face more serious, lowered her voice, and dropped into a chair like she'd seen Buffy do in Giles' presence. "Xander's back, and he's got a special project he needs to work on -- but it's something that requires some privacy. We need to quarantine the machine shop for, oh, about three weeks."

"I see. Have you discussed this with Jason?"

"Jason's going to be helping us with it. Don't worry, it's not dangerous -- just kind of time consuming, and a surprise."

"Well, it is that time of year. I'll see to it that the necessary warnings are posted. Now, one more thing ... why are you trying to fool me into thinking you're the flesh and blood Buffy?"

"Oh, _man_!"

"It was a good attempt, mind you ..."

Bottie wasn't sure herself why it seemed important. "I was designed to be just like Buffy, but I'm not! How can everyone tell the difference?"

"Ah. Well ..." Giles rested his elbows on the desk, and laced his fingers together to rest his chin on them. "Buffybot, you seem to be developing ... emotions."

"I am?"

He nodded. "You were programmed to be cheerful all the time, but since you received that magical powerup from Dana I've seen you happy, sad, upset, even angry a time or two. Remember when Willow ran all those tests on you last month? She was trying to determine what was causing it. It's almost as if you've received a spark of humanity, somehow."

Hadn't Xander mentioned a spark? "But wouldn't that mean I'm becoming more like the real Buffy?"

"Yes, but you've never been in love."

In love? "I don't understand."

"Buffy Summers had a difficult childhood."

"But -- she was spoiled."

"Quite." Rising from his chair, Giles looked out over the cold Chicago skyline, hands clasped behind his back. "Her parents had marital difficulties all through her childhood, and they compensated by spoiling her. I suspect they even competed to see who could give her the most ... things. She did indeed grow to be self centered, and when she was called to be the Slayer she wanted nothing to do with it. Not because she was afraid, but because she was being called to do something that didn't involve personal gain."

Bottie stared at him. She'd always thought of Buffy as some kind of paragon, which was hardly surprising, now that she considered it.

"When her parents got divorced, she suddenly found her standard of living lowered. In addition, she was facing a future of battling evil instead of pampering herself, and she resisted the idea with all her might. When I met her, she was cheerful, bouncy, energetic -- because she still thought she had the world on a string."

"So it was ... responsibilities? But I have responsibilities."

"That was just the beginning." Now Giles turned to look at her. "She fell in love. I'm no psychiatrist, but she clearly has a tendency to fall for men who are no good for her. Angel, Spike, the Immortal, that bloody idiot in college ... I can't speak for the others, but with Angel, right or wrong, she truly, deeply, fell in love. Then she had to kill him. Then he returned to life, but her second chance vanished when they realized they could never be, and he left Sunnydale."

"That's ... sad."

"Yes. And all this changes a person. You have a bounce to your step, a sense of constant optimism, that pervades every room you enter. You haven't been hurt -- not like that. I hope you never are, which is something I'd not have worried about just a few months ago. Buffy may someday find true happiness, but I doubt she'll ever have that innocent joy that you still display."

Bottie felt something roll down her cheek. She wiped it away, and saw wetness on her fingers. "My optic lubricant is overflowing!" She looked at Giles. "Do I need maintenance?"

"No, Buffy," Giles said with a sad smile. "I believe you're quite healthy."

----

The Christmas tree, a huge blue spruce, was decorated to within an inch of its life, and placed near the lounge windows so it could be seen from other buildings nearby. Someone had strung a huge "Merry Christmas" across the far wall, so it could also be seen from outside, and between the two was every form of holiday decoration anyone could imagine. Folding chairs had been brought into the room because, with the exception of those who had families to go home to, all the slayers and their assorted support staff had gathered in this one room.

It was crowded, to say the least.

Buffybot made her way through the gathering, exchanging greetings as she went and passing out red Santa hats. She supposed the outfit she'd picked out -- a long, red, fur trimmed coat and green tights -- was a cliché, but she was far too happy to care what anyone thought about it.

Dana huddled in the far corner of the room, safely on the other side of the snack table from the crowd, snogging on fudge. Tara stood beside her, looking down at the table with an expression of longing.

Bottie playfully grabbed Kara's arm as she passed. Kara couldn't return the motion, as she was trying to keep her new copy of "Bewitched" hidden from Willow, who stood nearby with Kennedy.

In fact, everyone had a present, thanks to Willow, who had arranged a secret Santa exchange. Better one gift for each than each person trying to figure out how to afford hundreds of gifts. The whole thing had worked out great. Just the same, Bottie was confident that her present was going to be the talk of the season.

She finally reached the far wall, which had been covered by a tapestry. A Christmas themed tapestry, of course, full of candy canes, snow flakes, and angels. Many people had remarked on how colorful it was, and congratulated Buffybot on her creative skills.

She looked to her left and right. Xander and Jason, standing at each end of the massive tapestry, nodded that they were ready.

"Can I have your attention, everyone?" She got their attention, thanks to her built in volume control. In fact, some of the closer people winced.

Richard, who was standing between Kara and Giles, called out, "Tone it down, will you? It sounds like you've already had too much eggnog."

"Sorry."

"I'm just kidding, Bottie; I'm the one who's had too much eggnog."

When the laughter died down, Bottie said, "I'm glad everyone liked the tapestry, but it's not the present -- it's the wrapping."

With that, Xander and Jason pulled the tapestry down.

It took a long, quiet moment for everyone to process what they were seeing.

The entire wall was covered by a wooden display case. Inside the case were hundreds of faces -- not photographs, but exact likenesses of the slayers and all their supporters, carved carefully into wooden reliefs.

Buffy and Faith were in the center, side by side. Around them were what Giles called the support group: himself, Xander, Willow, Tara, Dawn, Andrew, Richard, Jason, Robin, and even the demon who had appeared out of nowhere a month ago and been given a job as the building's janitor, Clem.

Bottie, after some thought, had put herself with the larger group: line after line of slayers, gathered in alphabetical order around those in the center. finally, at the bottom and lined in black, were the five slayers who had died since the destruction of Sunnydale, all in the battle that had first brought them together.

"Whoa," Faith murmured, from where she stood in a corner with Robin.

Nearby, Clem cried, "Hey, it's me!"

A murmur swept the room, and those in front had to fight from being crushed as the others moved forward for a closer look. It wasn't just that it was everyone's picture -- it was the remarkable likeness, the way the images had been so carefully carved and polished that they looked almost like pictures themselves.

"Buffybot ..." Giles stood gazing at the mural. "This is ... this is remarkable."

"It's brilliant", agreed the human Buffy.

Beside her, Dawn added, "It's the best Christmas gift ever."

Beaming, Bottie looked out over her friends and explained: "It's family."

----

Buffybot was tired.

Well, her batteries were low, which to her meant tired. She shuffled toward her cubbyhole, intent on getting a few hours "sleep" so she could help clean up the remains of the party in the morning. But she found Kara, Dana, Tara, and Willow standing outside the door to her room.

"You didn't get a Christmas present, Bottie," Kara said.

Bottie just grinned. "Yes I did -- when I saw everyone's faces, after the tapestry came down."

"That's true," Tara agreed, "but that was a present for everyone. In addition, we each had a secret Santa present, and I drew you."

She stared at them, nonplussed. "But I don't need anything."

"It's not always about need," Dana said, and before she knew it, Bottie found herself drug toward the dorm areas.

"But I have to recharge soon," Bottie protested, to no avail. The group stopped in front of Tara's room, which had only recently been constructed. Kara opened the door, and the others led Bottie inside.

It was pretty much what the robot would have expected, except that there were two beds. Bottie looked around, seeing a rollup desk, a loveseat, a recliner, and two lamps. "It's very nice," she said uncertainly.

"This one's mine." Tara pointed to the bed on the right, which had a bookcase type headboard on it.

Willow grabbed Bottie's arm and turned her toward the other bed, which had strange, gleaming, metallic rods sticking up like some kind of ultramodern gate at both head and foot. "This one is very special. When the power button is switched on, a current runs through these, and through the springs, and charges -- you! Without the need for plugging in."

Bottie stared at her.

"You deserve a room," Kara explained. "Not a closet."

"So," Tara added, "you're now my roomie. I hope you don't snore."

"But ..." There was a strange, heavy feeling in Bottie's chest, that she couldn't define. "Why would you do this? It's not something I needed."

"It's not about need," Willow told her.

Dana nodded. "We're family."

When everyone enveloped her in a group hug, Bottie felt a warmth that she hadn't noticed before. Body heat, she told herself. That strange leaking from her optical lubricants came again, too, but she didn't feel like she needed maintenance.

In fact, she concluded, she had all she needed.


	7. Kara's Secret

_**The slayer Kara faces her sixteenth birthday with something missing from her life -- a male something.**_

_**Thanks to LunerGirl129, otherwise known as my daughter, otherwise known as the original model for Kara, who didn't appear overly mortified when I showed her this story. **_

**KARA'S SECRET**

Dear Diary,

My name is Kara Philips, and I've decided to start keeping a diary because my life has gotten really interesting lately. (And also because my dad gave me a diary for Christmas.)

There was finding out that I was a slayer, of course, which happened during a martial arts match in which I totally kicked ass. I'll get back to that.

Then there was getting attacked by vampires and big green demons, and fighting dead slayers, and getting slimed last month by an Angorrah Demon, which – ew. There was having a ghost become my watcher, and having a robot as one of my best friends, and having a roommate who's – well, I'll reserve a whole entry later on to explain Dana. Oh, and moving from rural Indiana to Chicago. The truth is, I hate Chicago. It's like there's no outdoors here. But my dad got to move here with me – it turns out he was a potential watcher, which is kind of hard to explain. A lot of the slayers only get to see their family on holidays, so I shouldn't complain.

Besides, the really interesting thing doesn't involve any of this. Now, this is a secret, diary, so I hope you don't mind that you'll be hidden at the back of my locker in the gym when I'm not writing in you. It's the only locked place I've got. I've been so busy training, and fighting evil, and catching up on my math homework, that I totally spaced on the fact that I was about to turn sixteen.

And … well, as the saying goes, sweet sixteen and never been kissed.

I'd sit there while everyone talked about all the hot guys they knew, and all the dates they went on, and all I could do was keep quiet. Rona got kissed when she was fourteen. Vi was fifteen. Kennedy kisses girls, which still counts, although I'd rather not think about it. Faith – don't get me started. And I have it on good authority that Buffy was my age when she lost her virginity! Speaking of which, the whole reason Buffybot got built was for stuff like that.

Don't get me wrong – I'm not ready to go that far. But it's embarrassing, never having even been kissed by a guy. So, I decided that before the end of the year, I was going to get that kiss.

This presented a problem. I'm in a place that's a lot like a girl's school, and the only time I leave is for field trips, which is another way to say missions. We have to focus during missions, because of the whole kill or be killed thing. Believe me, there's no time to cruise for guys. So I'm left with the males who live here, on the fourteenth and fifteenth floors of the building. Maybe there are hot guys on the other floors, but we never go there – I don't even know what businesses we share the building with.

The men here consist of, first of all, my dad, and Giles, who's old enough to be my dad; Robin, who's still heavily into his relationship with Faith – and nobody would want to take on Faith --

By the way, the Robin and Faith thing has gone the distance and then some. Willow averaged out the bets in the pool, and says according to the average they should have broken up six months ago. I don't think anybody's more surprised than they are.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Xander's cool, but he's like, six or seven years older than me. I suppose that won't seem like such a big deal when I'm older, but right now it does.

Then there's Andrew. There's another pool going over whether Andrew likes girls at all, but even if he does – ick.

Clem's a guy, I think. But he's a demon, and it would be kind of like kissing a bald puppy, and I don't think it would count, anyway.

That leaves Jason. Jason is only a year older than me, he's got blonde hair and blue eyes, and muscles (he works out), and a really nice butt, and it helps that he's a nice guy, too. But the thing is, we've got a history. In fact, he's the guy whose butt I kicked the moment I got my slayer powers.

See, Jason and I grew up together. He spent a lot of time at my house when we were kids, because his dad's kind of a psycho, and my dad's normal, more or less. He ended up in Chicago with us because we got attacked by vampires in his dad's coffee shop, then Jason got thrown through a wall at my house, and Jason's dad didn't think a concussion made up for trashing the shop and then leaving it empty in the middle of business hours, and … it was a whole big thing.

The point is, his dad kicked him out of the house, so Jason came with us and became our special weapons expert. Did I mention that Jason's dad is a survivalist gun nut who used to make Jason assemble machine guns blindfolded?

So Jason is here, and I'm here, and he's fine, and to be honest with you, I've thought about kissing him since sixth grade. He seemed unreachable back then, because he was on the football and the basketball teams, and I never bothered even trying out for cheerleader. Not that I don't still have competition – there are hundreds of slayers, and a lot of them live here full time. But he hasn't been dating any of them as far as I know – I think he's a little overwhelmed by how much he's outnumbered.

Next step was getting him alone. Did I mention the hundreds of slayers?

Fast forward a few days to New Year's Eve, when I saw my chance. Everybody started gathering in the gym early, because Andrew and Clem had made this big dinner, and then there were snacks and games and music, and a TV set up to watch New Year's Rockin' Eve, and all that stuff. So by six o'clock most of us were there in the gym.

But Jason doesn't like crowds, and he's not much of a partier, so I knew he'd wander in kind of late. I also knew where I was most likely to find him before then.

So I put my plan into effect, starting with dressing up in my best outfit. It was a black pleated skirt and a purple backless top, and gold hoop earrings, and these really cool shoes I'd talked my dad into getting me. Earlier in the day I talked Bottie into doing my hair: curls, wavy bangs, that kind of thing. I couldn't do anything about my braces, but I've heard all the rumors about kissing with braces on were just, well, rumors.

Then I went hunting.

Sure enough, Jason was in the armory, but he wasn't alone – I should have known better than to think it would be that easy. He was sitting among the storage cabinets with some kind of big honkin' gun across his lap, and Giles was sitting in another chair, and they were in the middle of a big argument.

"That kind of weapon would be useless in the hands of a non-expert," Jason was insisting. "Worse than useless." I knew instantly he wasn't talking about the big honkin' gun, although I doubt if a non-expert would even know how to point it.

"Against a long range weapon, perhaps," Giles retorted. "But even a minimally trained warrior should be able to acquit himself well against blades and other hand weapons."

Jason shook his head. "But you have to connect to be effective. A trained swordsman can get inside your defenses without taking a hit, and then you'd be screwed."

Looking frustrated, Giles threw his hands into the air. "Jason, it's a bloody lightsaber. It can cut through anything. William Wallace himself wouldn't take a chance that he could make a hit before his sword was melted."

_Oh, brother_.

Suddenly realizing he had an audience, Jason turned to me. "Kara, don't you think an untrained fighter with a lightsaber would be just as likely to cut his own leg off as take out an opponent?"

"The only question I have about lightsabers is why, when you turn them on, the light doesn't just keep on going, like a flashlight? Then you could just aim it at the bad guys and shoot them."

Jason looked at me like I was crazy. Not quite the look I was hoping for tonight.

Hoping to keep this from escalating into questions of why the Empire never learned to equip its armor with tracks (I've been through this with Jason before), I poked a thumb over my shoulder. "Mr. Giles, you might want to head toward the gym. Faith is trying to talk everyone into pairing off for midnight kisses."

Giles gave me a blank stare for a moment. Then he thought about it, and the blood drained from his face. "Dear Lord." He vaulted from his chair and hurried out, letting the heavy steel door swing shut behind him.

Well, that had been easier than I'd expected. Pretending to look around the large room, I did a little pirouette, letting the skirt flare out a little. Then I took the chair Giles had just vacated, which put me right in front of Jason. And yes, I'd shaved my legs for this.

There was no sign at all that Jason had noticed anything out of the ordinary. "Did you see this?" He gestured down at the aforementioned big honkin' gun.

I nodded. Of course I'd noticed it, since I'd been plotting how to get him to put it away ever since walking in. "It's a big honkin' gun."

"It's a Browning Automatic Rifle." He waited expectantly, grinning like a madman.

"I kind of prefer the rocket launcher you used in Michigan last summer. Big boom."

He looked disappointed, and I couldn't figure out why. "Kara, this B.A.R. is half a century old, and in mint condition! The Watcher's Council updated the inventory every now and then, but never got rid of the older weapons. This is a classic."

Oh – that concept I could understand. "Like – Astronaut Barbie in mint condition."

"Well, yeah. Except you couldn't load up Astronaut Barbie and use her to fill that Angorrah Demon full of holes before it got without mucus squirting range."

"Oh! In that case, I want a B.R.A. for my birthday."

He grinned, and his gaze briefly swept my outfit. "It's B.A.R."

Oops. Realizing what I had spelled, I blushed and looked away. We sat in silence for a moment, and not a comfortable silence, either.

Then the door burst open, making us both jump. Dana vaulted in, looking panicked. "Kara! I've been looking for you."

"What's wrong?" With Dana, it's kind of hard to tell whether something bad is happening, or whether the voices are talking to her again, or whether it's something really minor that's set her off.

"I don't really have to kiss somebody at midnight, do I?"

Oops. I hadn't planned to say anything to Giles about Faith's whole kissing plan, which I'd assumed was a joke, but it looked like it was a good thing I had. Forcing a kiss on Dana would be like playing catch with nitroglycerin.

"If I do have to," Dana continued, "I'd rather kiss you."

I glanced at a dumbfounded looking Jason, then back at Dana. Then I realized Dana was looking at me. Then I blushed again.

"I mean …" Her hands kind of fluttered, and she blushed, too. "I just mean if I have to kiss somebody … not that you're not kissable, because I'm sure …" Suddenly Dana gave Jason a closer look, then turned back to me. "Or Bottie. I could kiss Bottie. Cause, she's a robot."

The big honkin' gun started to fall, and Jason grabbed at it. He turned to put it into a locker, pretending we weren't there.

"You don't have to kiss anyone, Dana," I told my friend. "Faith's not really serious."

"Okay." With a sigh of relief, she turned back to the door, then glanced back at me. "But if I do, it'll be Bottie."

Jason finished locking the gun back up and turned back to me as the door closed. "Wow."

"Yeah, I know all about you guys and your lesbian fantasies." It just came out before I could stop it.

Jason's face turned beet red. "Hey! I didn't –"

"The crazy slayer and the sexbot." I snapped my fingers at him. "Go take a cold shower!"

I don't know why I got mad. Maybe because I'd done all that dressing up that he didn't even notice, and Dana was still dressed in her gray sweats from her afternoon workout. Of course, I hadn't volunteered to make out with a robot that was built to fulfill a vampire's sex fantasies.

"Seriously, Kara, I wasn't thinking anything like that. Besides, you're better looking than Dana or Buffybot."

Okay, that helped. "Really?"

"Yeah." He gestured at my outfit. "You, um, clean up real nice."

Full of nervous energy, I stood up and smoothed my skirt out – which put me about three feet from him. "You really think so?" I turned my face up toward his.

"Yeah," Jason murmured. He leaned toward me.

Tara walked through the wall right beside us.

"Gah!" Jason yelled, stumbling backward. He tripped over the B.A.R. locker, then all of him but his legs disappeared behind it. He was wearing Reebocks.

"Oh!" Hurrying over, Tara helped him to his feet. "I'm sorry. There was something I needed to get done before the party, and –" She stopped, and looked from Jason to me. I'm pretty sure I'd yelled something incoherent, too, but I'd managed to stay on my feet.

"It's okay," Jason told her, as he brushed himself off. "I'm the one who left that locker in the middle of the room, anyway. No harm done."

"Oh, good." Her gaze traveled between the two of us again, and she hesitated. "Um, have either of you seen Kennedy?"

"Why, are you going to slime her?" It was the same joke Jason made whenever Tara went in search of Kennedy or Willow. For some reason, he still thought it was funny.

"I haven't decided," Tara told him with a smile. For some reason, she kept on humoring him.

"Kennedy went on a snack run with Andrew," Jason said. "Something about wanting to try some kind of flowering onion thing."

"Oh, thanks. Um, I'll leave you alone now. But don't forget, dinner starts soon!" Turning, Tara walked back through the same wall.

Jason frowned. "I wonder why she's always looking for Kennedy? I mean, Tara's the ghost of Willow's girlfriend, and Kennedy is Willow's present girlfriend. Shouldn't Tara be trying scare Kennedy's to death, and shouldn't Kennedy be calling an exorcist?

"Tara's too decent for that," I murmured. I'd been busy trying to remember what was on the other side of that wall, and imagining somebody over there yelling and throwing things when Tara appeared, although the armory walls were too thick to hear if it happened. While I was working that through in my mind, I realized Jason was staring at me.

"What?" Had I been smiling? Had he seen my braces?

"Nothing. I just … you look really pretty today, Kara."

I did? "I do?" I knew those shoes were worth the money!

"Yeah. Um, the outfit, and, you know, your hair, and stuff." He reached out, brushing his hand against my hair. I began feeling flushed and dizzy, which probably had something to do with the fact that I'd stopped breathing.

"Are you okay?" Jason asked, looking concerned.

"I will be in a second," I whispered.

He leaned in, focusing on my mouth …

The door slammed open.

"Damn it," I yelled, "doesn't anybody know how to knock?"

Buffybot stood in the doorway, staring at me. "On the armory door?"

"Yes!" I was so frustrated I actually stamped my foot. "It's just – common courtesy!"

"Sorry."

She looked hurt, which made me feel bad. I know she's supposed to be just a robot, but if her emotions are programmed, it's a doggone good program. "I'm sorry, Bottie." I glanced back at Jason, who was looking like my reaction had frightened him a little. "It's just that … we were about to …"

I turned back to Bottie, but she had company. Standing in the door behind her was Richard Philips, former school teacher, writer, and watcher, otherwise known as my dad.

"About to what?" he asked, making Bottie jump.

Behind me, I heard Jason gulp.

"Go to the party," I said, while desperately trying to figure out why being interrupted in the act of leaving would bother me.

Bottie turned to my Dad, looking exasperated. "Dana claims Kara told her that she had to kiss me!"

Dad's eyebrow rose. "Who kiss you?"

"Dana."

Dad's eyebrow stayed up. "My daughter's making you kiss a robot?"

"Faith did it," I tried to explain.

"Faith kissed Bottie?"

I let out a grunt of frustration. "Faith started the rumor that everyone had to pair up to kiss at the stroke of midnight, and Dana said if she had to kiss anyone it would be Bottie, and I tried to explain to Dana that it wasn't true, but apparently she got mixed up, and she'd rather kiss a robot than a man."

Behind me, I heard Jason make a strange, choking noise.

My dad considered the whole thing for a long moment, then crossed his arms. "Who do I get to kiss?"

"Dad! Gross!"

"Because I kind of had my heart set on –"

"I don't want to hear it!" To demonstrate, I stuck my fingers in my ears. "Go to the party!"

"Fine." Dad put a hand on Bottie's shoulder to steer her into the hallway. "We'd better go tell Dana it's a false alarm." He glanced back at Jason and me, and his eyes narrowed. "It's time for you two to come to the party, too."

Before the door closed, I heard Bottie say, "So, who did you want to kiss, Mr. Philips?"

Silence. Blissful silence, for a moment, then uncomfortable silence. I looked over my shoulder, to where Jason was fidgeting against the far wall. The moment had, most definitely, been broken.

"Well …" he said.

"Well …" I said.

"We should, uh, go to the party."

"Yeah." I tried not to let the disappointment show in my voice, but Jason, looking concerned, took a step forward.

"It's not that I don't want to – you know –"

"What?" I asked, my heart racing.

"Um, spend time with you. Alone. I mean."

"Oh."

"It's just … the armory isn't usually Grand Central freakin' Station. Maybe somebody's trying to tell us this isn't the right time."

"Yeah." As we turned toward the door, Jason draped his arm over my shoulder, and I let the warmth soak into me. Okay, so it wasn't a first kiss, but it was the beginning of possibilities. We walked into the hallway, arm in arm.

Until we realized we weren't alone. Jason's arm flailed away from me, and we separated as if rocket propelled.

There was a small group at the far end of the hallway, near the entrance to the gym. We glanced at each other, then walked closer, wondering what they were up to.

Bottie stood in the middle of the hallway with her feet planted apart, and her hands laced together to form a stirrup. Tara stood in that stirrup so she could reach the ceiling, while my Dad balanced her with a hand on her waist. Dana stood a short distance away, looking curious.

"What are you up to?" I asked, while also wondering why Tara couldn't just float up to the ceiling by herself. After all, if she could walk through walls …

Tara took her hands away and dropped easily to the floor. She'd left a green plant hanging from the ceiling.

"What --?" I didn't go on, because I'd figured it out for myself.

"It's mistletoe!" Bottie explained anyway. "A holiday tradition!"

Jason, who had stopped short, made a gurgling noise. He doesn't usually make that many incoherent noises, but I figured he was under a lot of pressure.

"If you're standing under it," Dad explained, "You're supposed to kiss." He looked up as if just realizing he was standing under it, then leaned over and pointedly kissed Bottie on the forehead.

"Oh! Thank you!" Bottie turned and kissed Tara on the cheek. Dad turned to expose his cheek to Tara's lips. But Tara, with a twinkle in her eye, used a hand to turn him back toward her, and kissed him squarely on the lips. He smiled, looking dazed.

Bottie looked over at Dana, but Dana had backed up about a dozen steps, and shook her head violently.

"So, that's how it works," Tara said. "Now, we have to go to the gym, and I think everybody else is there. So, the hallway will be empty for, oh, ten minutes?"

My Dad cleared his throat. "Five minutes. Someone will almost certainly be coming by if they haven't heard from you two in -- five minutes." He examined his watch, gave Jason a glare, then turned to walk into the gym.

"Time's wasting." Tara steered Bottie toward the door. Beating them there, Dana opened it, letting the sound of celebration out. "It's a new year coming … with all sorts of new possibilities."

Tara winked at me, then let the door close behind them.

After a moment, I stepped forward until I was directly under the mistletoe. Then I turned, to find Jason frozen in place. "Seriously, when Dad said five minutes I'm pretty sure he meant five minutes."

Jason licked his lips, but didn't move. "I can't."

_You gotta be kidding_. "Why not?"

"He'll know. I'll have to face him."

"He already knows. Now get your butt over here and lay one on me." I'm not usually that forward, but hey – five minutes.

Finally, Jason stepped forward, walking as if in a trance, and stopped right in front of me. "Kara, I …"

I forced myself to take a breath, and willed my heart to slow. "Yes?"

"I'm glad. I always wanted my first kiss to be with you."

_His first --?_

He cupped my face with his hands, and we both leaned toward each other. His lips were warm, and moist, and after a moment of experimentation we just kind of melted into each other. It was … nice. Okay, it was great.

We were still pretty much in the same position five minutes later, when someone – I'd imagine you can guess who – banged on the gym door. But that's okay. As first kisses go, it was a pretty darn fine one, and the next one, at midnight, was even better.

As for the future … well, there's a year of possibilities to come.


	8. Tara's Secret

**_The ghost of Tara takes steps to become ... something else. She's being aided by an unlikely assistant -- or is she?_**

_**Thanks again to Ainon for her beta skills. I own practically nothing.**_

TARA'S SECRET

On the fifteenth floor of the Watcher's Headquarters in downtown Chicago, Xander had built a small room, as well armored and insulated as the armory. It held a wall full of locked cabinets, a long workbench, and, at one end, an open area with a bare concrete floor, which had a pentagram painted on it. Willow liked to call the room Magic Central, and the only people who held keys to it were her, Giles, and Willow's assistant, the slayer Kennedy. It was equipped to withstand any siege, and even featured its own air supply, bathroom, and first aid equipment.

Kennedy had been put in charge of magical supplies, which she thought was ironic considering she'd spent most of her life denying the existence of magic. Pretty much everybody assumed she had the job because she liked to hang around – and on – Willow. Pretty much everybody was right.

But there was one other person who had no trouble getting into the place.

Kennedy was doing inventory when that person walked through the door. Not opened and walked through – just walked through. Her clipboard flew through the air, but otherwise she thought she handled it pretty well.

"Sorry." Looking startled herself, Tara caught the clipboard in midair.

"You can knock now, you know." Having Tara around could be weird enough, without these occasional shocks to the system. Luckily, Kennedy had brought in a CD player; the Latin dance music made a ghost's appearance somewhat less frightening than silence would have.

"You're right – I keep forgetting." Tara gave Kennedy that shy, apologetic smile, guaranteed to melt anyone. In fact, that smile was one of the reasons Kennedy had gotten herself into her present situation.

"Doing inventory?" Tara asked, looking at the clipboard.

"Yeah. Lucky for you I got that job. So … are you here for …?"

Tara glanced around a bit guiltily. Hardly surprising, considering how much trouble they both could get into for not clearing this with Giles – or Willow. "I don't think so."

"Good, because it's hard for even you to sneak replacements in for the items we've been using." She tried to sound severe – she's been involuntarily drafted into this whole thing, after all – but in truth, she was curious about whether their experiment would work. Especially after she started researching, and discovered things even Tara didn't know. "So – no backsliding?"

Tara shook her head. "Just the opposite. When that Angorrah Demon attacked us in Vermont, I wasn't able to concentrate enough to avoid its venom."

"You mean mucus."

"I prefer calling it venom." Tara made a face. "It actually burned me. I don't think I've felt pain since I died, but that really hurt, and I had to leave to get it off."

"But you healed?" Kennedy had been wondering about the effect of injuries under Tara's new condition.

"I desolidified, and when I went solid again the burns were gone. I don't know what would have happened if I'd stayed solid."

"There's a lot we don't know about this."

"I guess that's why I'm here." Tara perched on one of the stools lining the work bench, and rested her forearms on the hard wood surface. Kennedy still found such mannerisms strange – she could only picture ghosts as floating along, connected to nothing. But then, Tara wasn't exactly a ghost anymore, was she?

When Tara turned to her, Kennedy could see worry in her eyes. "I have to know it's permanent. Sometimes spirits just disappear, get drawn away. It almost happened to Spike. I like it here, and I have responsibilities –"

"Wait a minute – are you the one who called Spike?" Knowing someone had called the Wolfram and Hart L.A. offices from his office phone had been driving Giles nearly insane for weeks.

Tara clapped a hand over her mouth, but couldn't disguise a giggle. "No, I took a trip over there to see him, when I found out he'd become solid. It was Dana who called him."

"What?" Dropping the clipboard on the bench, Kennedy leaned forward. "_Dana_ called Spike?"

"Please, don't tell anyone. Dana thinks nobody knows."

"But – why?"

"She wanted to apologize for cutting his hands off."

"Huh." Just imagining how that conversation went made Kennedy smile. "Her secret's safe with me. I've been keeping a lot of secrets, lately."

"I'm sorry," Tara said, her face reddening.

"Don't worry about it." Using the key she kept on a chain around her neck, Kennedy opened a cabinet and took out what looked very much like an oversized "Star Trek" tricorder, and worked much the same way. "It's not the first time I've kept secrets."

Without hesitation, Tara unbuttoned her white silk shirt and pulled it off, an act that Kennedy found more disturbing than being alone in a room with a dead person. Beneath the shirt was a white lace bra. Did ghosts need bras? Or was it one of those acts of normalcy that the not quite departed spirits needed, to root themselves to the real world? And why, when she had spent all her life never hesitating to speak what was on her mind, did Kennedy have trouble asking such questions now?

Kennedy began hooking wires to the instrument. One clipped over Tara's index finger, and another to her ear lobe. Still another led to a cuff around her upper arm. The slayer brushed Tara's hair aside to patch leads to both sides of Tara's upper chest, and another to her left side.

Tara shivered. "Those are cold!"

Cold? She'd never complained of that before. Touching Tara's arm, Kennedy was surprised to find it a great deal warmer than the surrounding room temperature. "When you were alive, what was your normal temperature?"

"Ninety-seven point eight. But now I draw heat instead of putting it out, of course."

Looking at the tricorder – Willow and Andrew had designed it, and never gotten around to giving it a name – Kennedy noted the temperature reading: 97.8. She ran a hand down Tara's arm, then across her back. Warm.

"What are you doing?" Kennedy jerked her hand away, but Tara didn't look uncomfortable – just curious.

"You're, uh, hot. I mean, giving off heat."

"Really? I shouldn't be."

"We don't know much about the spell's long term effects." This worried Kennedy. Tara, dead or alive, was a knowledgeable Wicca, but far from the most knowledgeable, or the most powerful. "Look … I know you don't want to involve –"

But Tara quickly shook her head. "I don't want Willow to know about this. She'll freak out, and feel guilty, and it would screw up your relationship with her."

"I appreciate your concern." In fact, she felt like fainting from relief to realize they shared the same fear.

"She loves you, but she'd feel loyal toward me. It would tear her apart."

"Well, we could do the threesome thing. Lesbian, ghost, lesbian. Do you snore? Hog the covers?" False bravado, Kennedy thought. All her life, she'd only had two public faces: over confidence and false confidence. If the first didn't get her through, she'd lean on the second.

"I'm very cuddly," Tara said with a smile. "But of course, you and I both know that wouldn't work."

Kennedy ducked her head down, pretending to study the tricorder's readouts. Willow had never come right out and said it, but the slayer could read between the lines. Tara had been cuddly, and gentle, and all the things Kennedy was not. She even had incredibly smooth, pale skin, the type that a person would want to touch all day. Was she like that before, or could she make herself look as she wanted, just as she could appear in any clothes she wanted?

It wasn't, Kennedy supposed, uncommon to be jealous of a past love. But how common was it for that past love to come back from the grave? And why was she helping Tara become something that might someday take Willow away from her?

She stared, unseeing, at the readouts, remembering the book she'd found while researching the spell they did together. A book about spirits. A book that had a whole chapter on how to get rid of spirits. Quickly. Sometimes quietly.

Her eyes focused again, staring at an electronic display. It said, 76/76. Come to think of it, hadn't the spirit before her just blushed?

Tara, the spirit, had a blood pressure. Not a heartbeat, but a blood pressure. That helped explain the warmth – blood was again moving through her body, somehow – although it still didn't explain how the warmth was being generated.

Swallowing, Kennedy examined the other displays. Electrical activity, blood pressure, body temperature … reaching out, she shaded Tara's eyes with her hand. The pupils dilated.

"What's wrong?" Tara asked, looking frightened. "Have the readings changed?"

The spell had never been used this way before, and there was really no way to tell what the end product would be. Tara wasn't alive, but it seemed she was no longer dead, either. The internal furnace in her body had reignited. "Tara, are you hungry?"

"Am I --?" The spirit – if spirit she still was – tilted her head. "Well, I've been craving food, but I don't know if I'd call it hunger. I don't know what would happen if I tried to eat. Would it be like "Casper", with the food falling straight through me? Or would it get stuck inside?" She looked queasy at the idea.

So, Tara hadn't gone to the bathroom. But, she hadn't eaten either, or drunk anything, so the process of digestion hadn't been restarted – if it could be. Could it be? How far would this go?

What would Willow say if the love of her life became, in all ways that really mattered, alive again? Even Tara understood the possible consequences of that.

"Everything's fine." Kennedy walked over to a cabinet, one in which she'd stockpiled some special supplies earlier. It contained a small jar with a mix of herbs, a hunting knife, and a single book – the book about spirits that she'd found earlier. She unlocked the door, reached in, and removed the jar and the knife. "Just a few more tests to run. A few tests, to see how this will end."

"Well, what's the worst that could happen?" Tara, busy craning her neck to see the tricorder readouts, didn't watch Kennedy approach.

"I have an experiment," Kennedy said, holding the jar and knife behind her back. "Close your eyes and stick your tongue out."

"A taste test?" Looking amused, Tara followed directions. Her tongue, Kennedy noticed, was moist: Tara was salivating.

Kennedy sprinkled some herbs on the table, brought the knife up, and chopped the mix into still smaller pieces. Then she pinched a bit between her thumb and forefinger and sprinkled it onto Tara's tongue.

"Ack! Eugh!" Reeling back, Tara spit desperately until Kennedy handed her a cup half filled with tea she'd poured earlier. Tara swallowed it, right down to the dredges, ignoring the fact that the liquid had cooled to room temperature. "Ew! What was that?"

"The fixative from the last spell we cast. I had a little left over."

Looking horrified, Tara tried to take another drink, but the cup was empty. "But I inhaled the smoke from burning that! It's not supposed to be eaten!"

"Relax. I did the research – it's perfectly harmless. I was just testing your taste buds."

"They work." Tara still looked as if she'd swallowed a bug.

So they did. Touch, taste – all her senses were back, which meant there was one more thing to do. Taking a breath, Kennedy removed all the wires, then moved the knife and jar aside and motioned to the table. "Lay down on your back, please."

"What for?"

"One more test to do. Trust me – you put me in charge of the researching, remember? I know more about this spell than whoever – or whatever – created it."

Looking doubtful, Tara scooted herself onto the workbench and gingerly lay back. She looked trusting and defenseless, still without a shirt, her bare legs visible between the hem of her skirt and the top of her black boots. "Whatever you're going to do, hurry up – this counter is freezing."

Kennedy did have to hurry, before she lost her nerve. Not to mention, proper timing was vital. She'd read both the spell books related to this situation, all the way through. This was a critical moment, and she knew exactly what to do that would make a permanent difference – one way or another.

This time she went to a shelf by the door, and quickly pulled out a first aid box and a yellow case the size of a small laptop computer. She hit the "on" button, hooked wires to the case, and peeled stickers from two pads that she stuck to Tara's chest and side.

"Now, be very, very still. Try not to breath." Tara had been breathing, although Kennedy wasn't sure she'd realized it.

"Okay, but –"

"Trust me" Kennedy glanced at the wall clock.

"_Checking," _the machine spoke. _"Don't move the patient."_

Tara blinked. "What?"

"Just hold still." Kennedy, her heart racing, took a deep breath and held one hand over a red button on the machine.

"_Shock advised. Charging." _An alert tone rose in volume.

"What?" Tara said again.

Someone knocked on the door. Kennedy looked at the clock again – Tara was late for afternoon class.

_"Give shock now."_

Kennedy pushed the button.

The electric charge made Tara's muscles contract, and her body jumped as her back arched. An eerie groan emerged from her open mouth, as the force of the jolt forced air from her lungs. Then she flopped back down on the bench and lay still, her eyes open and staring, unseeing, at the ceiling.

The knocking on the door turned to a rapid pounding. Someone outside had enhanced hearing, and now knew something was very, very wrong.

"_Checking,_" the automatic cardiac defibrillator said. "_Don't move the patient."_

Grabbing up the knife, Kennedy Cut off Tara's bra, exposing her chest. Hesitating for only an instant, she sliced into her own wrist, then held her arm over the still form before her. Blood spilled out, pooling between Tara's breasts, while Kennedy chanted in Latin.

The door crashed open and three figures hurtled in, then came to a shocked halt in the entrance.

"Stop there!" Kennedy yelled, brandishing the knife.

"What are you doing?" Kara yelled back.

"_Shock advised,_" the machine said. Kennedy pretended to ignore it, but she was remembering her CPR class: Four to six minutes before brain damage started, no more.

"Is she –" Dana took a step forward and then froze, staring at Tara's upturned face.

"She's not breathing," the Buffybot whispered. "She was breathing before."

Staring at the blood, Kennedy intoned, "Gods and goddesses of heaven and earth, hear me. A rival makes a plea. We sacrifice to thee." Now she turned, looking at the three females standing, horrified, before her. "Will you die for her?"

"Die?" Dana repeated, her voice shaking.

"Answer in the presence of the lords of all dimensions. _Will you die for her?"_ Kennedy held the knife out, aimed toward them. "It's now or never."

_"Shock advised."_

"If she's not worth it to you – if you don't care enough to endanger your own lives for her – she can't come back again. Not ever."

Kara shook her head. "But what –"

"There's _no time_."

The world seemed to freeze for a second, with the four figures standing in the room as still as the one who lay, dead, on the table. Then Dana stepped forward, pulled her sleeve back, and held an arm out over Tara's body.

"I will die for her."

Without hesitation, Kennedy leaned forward and sliced into Dana's arm. While blood rained down onto Tara, mixing with her own, Kennedy looked to Kara. "We need the blood of three: a rival, a mystic and a virgin."

Hurrying to stand beside Dana, Kara held her arm out.

The knife, now stained with red, did its work again.

They were silent for a moment, the three of them, as their blood flowed over Tara's still body. Behind them, very quietly, Buffybot whispered, "I don't have any blood."

"It's okay, Bottie," Kennedy told her. "It's already working. Look."

The pool of blood faded, as if soaking into Tara's skin, then disappeared.

"That's it." Spinning around, Kennedy grabbed bandages from the first aid box and threw them to Dana and Kara. "Stand back!"

They did, looking confused, and as soon as they were clear of the bench Kennedy punched the red button on the automatic defibrillator. Tara's body jumped again, and a streak of bluish light played over her form for an instant; then it was gone, and she lay still.

----

An hour later Tara still lay on the bench, with four other females hovering over her in various stages of exhaustion. They'd backed away only long enough for Buffybot to properly dress the knife wounds.

"It's been a long day," Kennedy finally said, which brought scowls from the other three.

"You're telling me," came a barely audible voice from the bench.

They looked down to see Tara had finally regained consciousness, and the walls almost bulged outward from the communal sigh of relief. "How are you feeling?" Kara asked, taking her watcher's hand.

"I feel … really bad."

Kennedy glanced back at the tricorder, which she'd reconnected after removing the defibrillator. Temperature 87.5, blood pressure 106/60, respiration 16, pulse –

_Pulse_. A nice, steady 76.

She turned back to find Dana staring daggers at her. "You said we'd die," the slayer accused, holding out her bandaged arm. "We're not dead."

"I didn't say you'd die. I asked if you'd die for her. You had to be absolutely committed, or it wouldn't work."

"What wouldn't work?" Bottie asked.

"The spell."

Tara, who was now cushioned by a pillow and covered with a blanket, looked up at her. "The spell was just supposed to make me more solid." Her voice remained weak, but color had begun to spread back into her face.

"Not that spell. Another one, which I found while researching the idea."

"What idea?" Kara demanded.

"I wanted to be real," Tara told her. "I thought it would help me to be a better watcher, if I was visible, and solid all the time." She turned to regard Kennedy, who was relieved to see no anger in her eyes. "What did you do? I can't be alive again."

"Well, not exactly. I used your spirit, and the magic within you, to construct a new body. It's similar to the way Dawn was turned from a ball of energy into a real person. You're still a spirit – but you're a spirit within a flesh and blood construction. If the books are correct, you'll still have that side of you that can commune with the spirit world, but you'll breath and eat, feel and hurt – it's a loophole, you see. You're not alive again – but you are."

Tara stared at her for a moment. Then she let go of Kara's hand and reached out to take Kennedy's. "Why did you do this?"

"Because …" Kennedy swallowed and looked away. This was the part she'd feared the most. "Because once I knew it could be done, I knew it was what Willow would have wanted."

Tara squeezed her hand, but Kennedy barely noticed. She was thinking of how things would change, now that her life with the woman she loved was over.

"Willow can never know," Tara whispered.

"What?"

"You gave me what I wanted. Now I'm giving you what you need. I'll be all right. I have my friends, and my job, and I'll have the memory of what you did for me. But I couldn't go back to the way things were, not even if you weren't here." Tara gathered her strength, and spoke more forcefully. "Willow can never know."

Kennedy nodded, and used her free hand to wipe a tear from her cheek. It seemed they'd both been given a gift, today. "Okay." Then, because she never liked to show her feelings, she shifted attention to the star of the day. "Your new heartbeat's getting stronger. How are you feeling?"

"Like I was someplace else, in a dream." Tara pointed at Kara. "You were there, with your brains."

She gestured toward Dana. "And you were there, with your heart."

She turned to Bottie. "And you were there, with your courage."

Finally Tara looked again to Kennedy, who wondered if she was to be Toto or the Wicked Witch. But Tara said, "And you – you're not a humbug at all. You're both a good person _and_ a good wizard."

"You're delirious," Kennedy said, her voice shaking. "And you're human, so I guess we have to take care of you, now. Can we get you anything?"

Tara's smile widened. "Chocolate."


	9. Real Life

Buffybot's favorite hobby was people watching.

She'd lucked out tonight, because what she considered to be a pretty eclectic group was spread out before her. She'd taken an easy chair and set it up on one side of the lounge, so that she could see the faces of everyone else.

Kara Philips had the middle of the couch, facing the big screen TV that hung – supposedly for training purposes – against one wall. She held a small controller in her hand, and was staring intently at the screen. On her right, Dana was also concentrating on the images before them. On her left, Jason was much, much closer, and seemed to be concentrating mostly on Kara.

Which helped explain why, in a love seat not far behind the couch, Richard Philips was having trouble concentrating on his book.

"I don't get this," Jason said, glancing at the screen.

"We're relaxing," Dana told him, looking across Kara. "Classes are over, and we didn't pull any missions tonight."

"I know that. I'm talking about the game."

Although she wasn't very interested, Bottie looked at the screen. A snappily dressed young man with a goatee was climbing into what appeared to be a Gremlin – the car, not the creature. Shouldn't someone who could afford clothes like that be able to afford a newer car?

"My roommate's going to work," Kara murmured, her attention on the lack of action before her.

Behind her, Kara's father looked over the edge of his book. It was titled "High Five", and appeared to be quite different from the textbooks and history tomes he usually read. "Oh, goody," Richard said. "Someone in that house is making a living."

Beside him, Tara nudged his shoulder. "He's a dog shampooer."

"It all spends the same."

Bottie grinned. She knew that was funny, although she wasn't sure why. That was why she enjoyed watching groups of people interact – to learn new things about how to act human, herself. Just last week she'd spent over an hour watching Buffy, Xander, and Giles interact, until Buffy started getting annoyed and sent her off to kill something. It hadn't been a good night for vampires that night!

Jason's arms were thrown over the couch back, and now he reached one hand up to play with strands of Kara's dark brown hair. "I just don't get this. They sleep. They hang around the house. They go. They come back and eat."

Richard cleared his throat. "Staying busy keeps them out of trouble."

Jason jerked his hand away from Kara.

"But sometimes they need downtime," Tara murmured, without taking her gaze from the _Wicca's Digest Magazine_ she was reading.

Richard clenched his teeth. "As long as it's downtime that doesn't get them into trouble."

Ooh! Tension!

Trying to appear nonchalant, Jason moved his hands to his lap, and after a moment Richard buried his nose back in the book. Tara smiled at both of them, and then went back to reading, herself.

"What's that?" Dana asked, pointing at the screen.

"I have to hook up with someone to get points," Kara explained.

Jason grinned. "Now we're talking."

Her lips quivering, Tara looked sideways at Richard, but from her angle all Bottie could see was his knuckles whitening as his grip tightened on the book.

"What's hook up?" Dana asked.

"Sex," Bottie blurted out. Everyone turned to look at her. So much for just observing.

"Oh." Unperturbed, Dana turned back to the TV.

Still hidden behind the book, Richard muttered, "Isn't Grandma Mazur something? No wonder Stephanie Plum is so messed up."

Raising her magazine, Tara deliberately elbowed Richard. "Gee, they're coming out with a new line of scribing crystals. It says here you can track demons to within a hundred feet."

He elbowed her back. "With one of those, maybe Stephanie Plum could finally get her man the first time."

"Rolls eyes," Kara murmured.

There was a brief silence, except for the oddly catchy tunes and almost understandable dialogue from the game. Then Dana leaned forward, her spine ramrod straight. "Is she _naked_?"

Jason quickly came to attention. So did Richard, who dropped his book.

"They have to shower," Kara told them, rather defensively. "If they get stinky, people don't want to be around them and they lose points."

Jason turned toward her, looking miffed. "Tell me again why you wanted to get this instead of Crash Bandicoot? I mean, you sleep; eat; clean house; go to work; try to make friends. What's the attraction?"

"It was kind of fun when the kitchen caught on fire," Dana told him.

Leaning forward, Richard picked up his book, and Bottie could barely make out his muttered, "Not in my house, it wasn't."

Bottie reminded herself to ask him about that, later. She didn't want to mention it now and get the conversation off on a tangent, because she'd been wondering the same thing Jason had.

Pausing the game, Kara gave a heavy sigh and turned to Jason. "They do have an add-on program where you can put vampires into the game."

Jason's eyes widened. "Now we're talkin'!"

But Kara shook her head. "That would make it even more like real life! I so don't get you sometimes. Look, you can create your own people, and the world they're in, and you're responsible for what they do, and how it effects others."

For the first time, her father looked interested. "So it's like writing a novel."

Kara craned her neck to look at him. "Well … yeah. I guess so."

"A romance novel," Tara suggested with a wide grin. She was rewarded with a dirty look from both father and daughter. "Think of it as practice for the future."

Richard's jaw worked for a moment, and then he made a show of checking his watch. "Bedtime."

"What?" Kara stared at him, looking horrified. He had never, in Bottie's memory, sent her to bed; in fact, this was about the time he often sent her out on patrol.

"You have a plane to catch tomorrow, for that place in Washington State where the bodies washed up on the beach. An early plane."

"Oh, right." Looking disgusted, Kara climbed to her feet. "So -- I'm going to bed."

Jason vaulted to his feet. "I'll go, too." He froze in mid stride, his panicked gaze sliding toward Richard. "I mean –"

"I get to go with her." Dana rose and brushed by him, then grabbed Kara by the hand. "You get nowhere." She dragged the other slayer out the door, and Jason, looking as if a monster was after him, followed without a backward glance.

Tara managed to hold her laughter until the door closed. "The look on your faces!"

"Hum." Dropping his book into her lap, Richard moved to the couch, where he sat down and began examining the controller.

Tara watched him for a moment, then followed to sit, again, beside him. "You're bothered."

"Did you use your witch's power for that, or siphon knowledge from the spirit world?" He activated the game, and began moving his daughter's main character around her home.

Suddenly realizing they'd forgotten about her, Buffybot sat very still.

Tara waited, and after a moment Richard grudgingly began, "I suppose one of the things that attracted me to moving here was the idea that she'd be living in a building full of other girls. You know … convent like."

"But you brought Jason with you."

"I couldn't leave him in Indiana – not after he tried to save our lives, then got kicked out of his home for his trouble. I suppose it might also have occurred to me that with so much romantic competition, the odds would be against her." He paused to concentrate on moving the female character away from the home's other occupants.

Tara laid a hand on his shoulder. "But they've known each other since they were kids. There's a connection. They kissed on New Year's Eve – nobody else got a kiss, except for our regular couples, and Clem."

Bottie felt blood – actually, nutrient/lubricant fluid – rush to her face. Clem had just looked so lonely behind the snack counter, with no one of his own species to keep him company … it had seemed like a good idea, at the time.

"I know," Richard was saying, "I know. Jason's a good kid, and Kara's responsible, and Dana's keeping an eye on them both, yada yada … I'm not really worried. I'm just being – fatherly." Frowning, he hunched his shoulders. "You know, she was just a baby when her mother died."

Bottie put a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. She hadn't known – Kara never spoke about her mother. That was so sad!

"I spent all that time being both mother and father, and now here I am, letting her go – encouraging her to go – into danger." He turned from the game to look at Tara, his eyes full of sadness. "There's only so much danger a parent can stand."

Drawing him into her arms, Tara kissed Richard on the forehead. "You're a great dad. You have a special daughter, and you know what's best for her."

He returned her hug, then drew back. "Yeah, well – have fun flying across the country with her to look at dead bodies and battle vicious monsters."

"And you –" Tara paused, turning toward the screen. "What are you doing with her character, anyway?"

"Oh, that? I'm making her unpopular. When I'm done she'll have no friends, her house will be a wreck, and she'll stink to high heaven. No guy will want to touch her."

Looking shocked, Tara punched him on the shoulder. "That's cruel!"

"Dads do funny things." Richard saved the game, then turned off the TV and rose. "Sleep well, Tara."

"And you," Tara said to his retreating back. She waited until he'd left before turning to Bottie, who jumped at the sudden attention. "Well. What have you learned about being human?"

Bottie thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "That it's complicated."

"That it is." Scooping the book and magazine up, Tara hooked her arm though Bottie's and headed for the door. "That it is."


	10. Appointment

_Just a light drabble about a fateful day in a young girl's life; written to clean up a detail that dates back to when I created Kara for my very first fanfic._

-#-

Her father wanted to come along, but Kara said "No way". He wasn't here watcher; besides, she didn't want any watcher at all.

Tara, who was her watcher, just smiled, and said everything would be all right.

Dana was scared, and didn't want to go near the place.

Bottie was also scared, and insisted on going in with Kara, but when they called Kara's name she would let Buffybot go no further.

After all, Kara had been through this before. Besides, she'd fought vampires and demons -- what was the big deal about having her braces taken out?

The dentist agreed.


	11. Lilacs and Memories

**Tara and Bottie discover during a long drive that they have something in common.**

_Special thanks to _cagd, _who challenged me to write a story about lilacs, and to the GoodEvil LiveJournal site, which put out a challenge to pair two BtVS/AtS characters into one of several "stranded together" scenarios. Killing two birds with one stone, here. Thanks to ainon for the beta._

_-#-_

**LILACS AND MEMORIES**

_Tara McClay wandered among stands of lilac bushes, breathing in the scent of purple and white blooms. Soft grass cushioned her bare feet, while a light breeze swirled her skirt, and scattered strands of hair across her face._

_From behind the nearest bush, she heard a soft, feminine voice call her name. She moved closer, and saw Willow and Kennedy sitting on a blanket, a picnic basket between them. "We've been waiting for you," Willow said, patting the blanket. "Come, sit down -- we're getting hungry."_

_Tara let herself be drawn forward, but hesitated even when Kennedy also smiled invitingly. Something was wrong. Didn't she die before Willow met Kennedy?_

_"We have fresh apples," Willow added, gesturing toward an apple tree that suddenly appeared, incongruously, in the midst of the lilacs. "I didn't have time to make pie, but there are brownies, and fruit salad, and veggies with a nice dip. Aren't you hungry? It's close to dawn."_

_Glancing up, Tara saw the sun's disk through high, thin clouds. Actually, two suns, side by side. "But --"_

_"It's all right." Willow gestured again, this time toward a small fawn that had wandered into sight. "Everything dead is alive again -- at least, a little."_

_Feeling the familiar old shyness, Tara tried not to stutter as she turned to Kennedy. "Is it okay with you?"_

_"Hey, I brought you back to life, didn't I?" Kennedy grinned. "Besides, I'm having nostalgia!" She looked like Kennedy, but spoke in Buffy Summers' voice._

_"Wh -- what?"_

_"I'm having nostalgia!" the girl repeated cheerfully, still sounding like Buffy. "Can you smell it?"_

Tara opened her eyes, and felt the rustle of fast-food wrappers beneath her feet. A flash of passing headlights blinded her and she looked away, her gaze resting on Buffy Summers, who flashed a wide smile from behind the steering wheel. "Can't you smell it? Seriously, I'm having nostalgia!"

A moment of panic gripped Tara, as she remembered the standard joke about Buffy's driving: _"She drives like I spit -- very badly."_ "Buffy, watch the road!"

The other woman turned her attention back to the two lane highway, a stretch of now empty pavement illuminated by their Impala's headlights, and Tara realized there was no immediate danger. She scooped up a bottle of tea from the cup holder, trying to wash the taste of sleep from her mouth, and as she sipped she realized one part of the dream was still there -- she did, indeed, smell lilacs. "What -- where are we?"

Buffy rattled off a longitude and latitude, then added helpfully, "Utah. Utah has many canyons, and a Great Salt Lake, which is really a sea because it's salty. And it has many Mormons -- Utah, not the lake. But polygamy is illegal."

For a moment Tara stared at her, until the fuzz began clearing from her head. "Buffybot?"

"Yes?"

_Right. Bottie -- mission -- me still dead, in a magic shell -- like describing a morbid candy. _Craning her neck, Tara glimpsed the shadows of two slayers sleeping in the back seat. Kara was stretched out, her head thrown back, snoring softly. Dana, having recovered from her panic attack at being trapped in the safety belt, was curled into a fetal position, her head on Kara's shoulder.

"Are you all right?" Buffybot asked as Tara turned back around.

"Sure, just ... weird dream." _And how._

"Oh, I'm sorry! I heard you speak, so I thought you were awake -- that's why I offered you the apple."

_Well, that explains part of it._ "Actually, an apple sounds good." She took the fruit from the plastic bag between them and bit into it -- mostly because she still hadn't gotten the taste out of her mouth, and it looked like they had a few hours to go before a morning toothbrush stop. Being resurrected in a new body had its disadvantages; knowing it was a magical construct didn't make her feel any better, considering how such powerful magic once almost destroyed Willow. "How long until we reach Las Vegas?"

Bottie shrugged cheerfully. "No idea."

"But -- you knew exactly where we are."

"Yes, I know where _we_ are; and I know where _Las Vegas _is; but I have no idea how to get from here to there."

"No Mapquest, huh?" Tara said sympathetically.

"We were doing okay until we tried to find a way around that pileup instead of waiting for it to be cleared. I figured if we kept going west we'd connect with the interstate again, but you've been asleep for three hours and all we've come across so far are very small towns and farms. And lilacs! I can tell you we're on US 6, though."

"Well, that narrows it down; there can't be too many US 6's."

"Nope. Don't worry, we're still going in the right direction: If you go west, eventually you hit the west coast."

"Thus the name." Tara wasn't sure that was the best possible plan, but she and Bottie were the only two in the car with driver's licenses -- and, although Bottie's was a fake, the robot had the advantage of a good sense of direction. "Bottie, what did you mean by feeling nostalgic?"

"Well, remember that time in Fort Wayne, when we dusted the two vampires at the mall?"

Tara, who'd started munching on the apple, just nodded until she realized Bottie's attention was on the road. "Um-hm," she mumbled through a mouthful.

"There was a line of lilac bushes right beside the convenience store where we stopped afterward. I catalogued the scent, and when I smelled it again just now, it made me remember how much fun we had there, and that made me smile. Nostalgia!"

Tara had seen the bushes, but that was before Kennedy's dubious experiment landed Tara back in a living shell -- and smell wasn't a sense ghosts retained. Still, she remembered the stop there well: It was one of the few times she'd seen Dana smile. "But Bottie ... how can you be nostalgic? What kind of emotions did Warren program into you?" She shuddered a little, and hoped the robot didn't notice. Thinking of Warren did that to her.

"Oh, only what Spike wanted: Happiness, desire, and unconditional love. But Spike also told Warren to make me as much like Buffy as possible -- I heard them argue about it after Spike found out how much I like to kill vampires."

"I can see how that would bother him," Tara murmured.

"Then I got broken, and Willow fixed me with magic!"

Tara winced. She should have known, considering how much Willow was toying with magic back then, that repairing a machine as complicated as the Buffybot would make her ex-lover turn to the magical arts. "So you got hit with magic twice, including what you drained out of Dana when her curing spell went wrong."

"Three times. Warren used a little magic when he created new robots."

That made sense -- it helped explain how Warren could turn out such complicated creations in his basement workshop, and might also explain how the Three Nerds ended up together. Tara suppressed a surge of panic at the thought of how many other robots might be out there -- surely Warren didn't have time to make more than a few. Wow. What possibilities. "You and I ... Frankenstein's," she murmured.

"What?" Bottie glanced over, looking offended. "I don't have a flat head and bolts in my neck!"

"You've been watching old horror movies with Xander again, haven't you?"

"My favorite is Dracula, with Bela Lugosi."

"Willow likes The Wolfman." _I wonder why that never bothered me? I guess I didn't make the connection until now._ "My point is, we're creations both of the gods and humans. You're a machine that's been given life, and I'm a spirit that was given a human shell again."

But Tara wasn't alive, not really. She ate, and breathed, and slept ... but she could feel the shell wrapped around her, like wearing a tight bodysuit all the time. Sometimes, for an instant, it felt too tight or too loose, as if adjusting itself, and every now and then her sense of touch failed -- a constant reminder that she wasn't alive, not really. If anything, Bottie was now more alive than she was. Although thankful for this second chance, it made Tara sad to think that she could never be a real woman.

"We're both living beings inside constructs, I guess." She dropped the apple core into a trash bag and stared at her hand, experimentally flexing her fingers.

When she looked back, Bottie wore the biggest grin Tara had ever seen -- even on the Buffybot. "We're like -- twins!" Bottie reached out to grab Tara's hand. "That's so cool!"

"I hadn't thought of it that way." She'd been thinking of it exactly that way, but obviously not from the same angle as Bottie. "Watch the road!"

One hand still on the wheel, Bottie turned her gaze back on the highway. "But it's true. We both died and were brought back to life, and we're both not really alive, and we both have magic in us."

"Well ... yes --"

"You know what else is great?" Bottie jerked a thumb back to take in the sleeping slayers. "Why do our friends accept us? Because we're different? No -- because we're the same, where it counts."

Tara thought about it for a moment, and then found herself also smiling. "You're right, Bottie -- in all the ways that matter, we _are_ alive. That's real magic."

"Ooh -- I like that. You should write it down."

"I'll remember."

"Me too. And when I remember, I'll think about lilacs and apples, and friends." Then Bottie suddenly straightened, and hit the brakes. "That sign said Provo. We're going the wrong way."

"Maybe there's another highway going through Provo that will take us in another direction -- that way we don't have to double back."

"But I like _this_ direction." the robot pulled into a driveway. "We get to go back over that great section of highway again!"

Only Bottie could see that as a good thing. But what the heck -- as Bottie turned the car back toward the east Tara saw the glow of predawn on the horizon, and decided taking the time to watch the sunrise wouldn't interfere with their mission.

"Let's wake up Dana and Tara," Bottie suggested, as they set out again.

"Why?"

"We're heading back toward the Lilacs! Friends should share the nostalgia."


	12. Truth or Dare

Buffybot dashed back into the motel room, slammed the door shut, and fell onto a chair. "I kissed one! You're not going to believe who -- Andrew's here!"

"His team isn't due for another hour," Kara said.

"Rona was probably driving," Tara suggested.

"Anyway, he's standing in the hallway with a funny expression, so we've got a few minutes to finish -- it's Tara's turn." Bottie grinned. "Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Compare sex with women to men."

"Oh my," Kara said.

Tara, her head lowered, took a moment to respond. "I wouldn't know."

Dana turned a funny color.

Buffybot just looked disappointed.


	13. Truth, Next Time

_Because I felt bad about leaving Andrew stranded in the hallway, at the end of my last drabble:_

Buffybot reopened the door to find Andrew rooted to the hallway floor. "You kissed me," he murmured, his eyes saucers.

"It was a game! I took 'Dare'."

"But … you kissed me." He was drooling, just a bit.

Dana retreated back into the motel room. Behind Andrew, Rona and the other just-arrived slayers backed away. "I think he's going to hurl."

Silence. Then, slowly, Andrew pitched forward. Kara caught him, preventing facial injury, and luckily didn't end up on the receiving end of a recent fast food stop.

Sighing, Tara turned to Bottie. "Maybe you should pick Truth next time."


	14. Being Real

_Everybody seems to be keeping secrets, and the Buffybot just can't figure out why. Special thanks to amazing Ainon, my beta, who called me on several quesionable items, and to everyone who's read, enjoyed, and commented. Other than OC Kara, none of these characters belong to me._

BEING REAL

Buffybot climbed to her feet, brushed off a combination of Nevada dust and former vampire, then craned her neck to get a look at a tear in the arm of her blue silk shirt. "Ow! That stings. It never stung before." She'd lost some skin on her left elbow, and the dyed lubricant designed to keep that skin a natural color now seeped out. It looked remarkably like blood.

Well, maybe the magical whammy Dana unintentionally gave her was still causing changes to her system. That would explain why she'd developed such a taste for strawberries, lately.

"Perimeter clear!" shouted Rona, forcing Bottie's attention back to the job. She clutched a stake and made a quick survey of the Las Vegas area desert, but saw only the living -- unless you counted Tara, who stood nearby making a similar survey.

"Bottie --do you have a fix on everyone?"

Bottie's enhanced vision caught Kara and Dana at the top of a dune, so far away that only thermal imaging could make them out. Kara limped a little as the two turned to come back, but otherwise neither seemed worse for wear. In the opposite direction, Rona strode through a haze of dust toward what had been the center of the fight. The rest of Andrew's team remained scattered in that direction,but they'd taken care of the stragglers and were also headed back toward their jumping off point, where their watchers waited.

Wait a minute --watchers? "Tara, where's --"

A loud groan interrupted her, and in an instant Bottie and Tara gathered over a prone body splayed out on the sand. "Andrew?" Bottie reached down, intending to lift the smaller man to his feet, but Tara grabbed her arm.

"He might be injured," Tara explained. "One of the vamps got by you, a little guy -- he went after Andrew."

"I caught a glimpse of him -- I thought it was a kid --"

"A phewet," Andrew said.

"Andrew! You're alive!"

"Bring the first aid kit," Tara called. It caused the nearest three slayers -- Kara, Dana, and Rona -- to break into a run, but their hands were empty of anything but weapons.

Bottie nudged Tara. "Andrew had the first aid kit."

"Oh."

With another groan, Andrew rolled over, revealing the nylon first aid kit clutched in his hands. The side had been torn open, making Bottie realize the debris she'd noticed spilled across the desert was more than just litter. "Oh, Andrew -- I hope you didn't break the ammonia tablets."

"Nmphw." Climbing to hands and knees, Andrew spit out a weed, then coughed up enough sand to make his own dune. "Did ah gid id?"

Bottie tilted her head. "I'm not programmed with that language."

As if they'd timed it, three slayers skidded to a halt just in time to help Andrew to his feet. Dana looked him up and down, then took a hurried step backward. "He wet his pants."

There was, indeed, a spreading dark spot on Andrew's cargo pants. "Awahbah." He spit out more sand.

"His canteen." Gesturing with her crossbow, Rona pointed out smashed bits of green plastic in the ground's Andrew-shaped indentation. "Whatever part of him landed on that is hurting."

"Huuuhhnnn." Andrew pointed weakly toward the wet spot. Then he cupped his hand and made a motion toward his mouth.

"I think he's going to puke." Dana took another two steps backward.

But a quick review of possible injuries, cross referenced with an index of facial expressions, led Bottie to a different conclusion, and with a feeling of triumph for being the first one to figure it out she handed Andrew her own water bottle, the one she usually didn't use except to rinse out demon blood stains.

He spit out the first two gulps, then drained the rest without pausing to breath.

"Big mouth," Kara whispered.

"It's very hot," Andrew finally said, sounding pretty much himself.

"But it's a dry heat." Pulling a handkerchief from her blouse pocket, Tara wiped sweat from her forehead. "Imagine what it must be like during the daytime."

Bottie nodded, but before she could give them the next day's predicted temperature, she noticed everyone except Andrew was giving Tara odd looks. _Tara was sweating_. Tara, the dead girl. Rona, the one among them who didn't know about the spell that put Tara into a more or less living body, tilted her head and stared, mouth open.

Bottie glanced at her seeping elbow again, and had an almost overwhelming urge to go get a test done. But if it was blood, what would it mean? Would she have DNA? Would she be related to someone?

"Did I get it?" Andrew glanced around eagerly. "Did you see me go up against that huge, hulking half-demon? Mano-a-mano against the gigantic vampyre?"

Huge? Replaying the fight, Bottie accounted for all the vampires except one little guy, whose physical stature flirted with the "midget" category. At least, that's the term Warren or Spike would have used; her original programming conflicted with her more recent learning curve for a moment, then she removed "midget" and assigned "little person".

"You got it, Andrew," Rona assured him. "Good thing, too; that nest was bigger than our intelligence led us to believe."

"Yeah ..." Looking confused, Andrew continued to scan the ground nearby. "But I can't find my stake."

Bottie went to thermal imaging, and caught site of a stake at the base of a nearby bush. But before she could speak, Rona said, "It got caught in his ribs -- dusted along with him." She gave the others a look that plainly said she was willing to trade hiding secret for secret.

"Oh. Yeah. Well, we've emerged triumphant in the --" Andrew took one step forward, then let out a gasp as his leg gave out from under him.

Kara was already there, keeping him from falling. "Hey, we've played this scene before," She guided him toward the road. "I caught you at the motel last night, too."

"Well, my blood sugar was low."

They headed off together, Dana trailing behind and scooping up equipment as they went. Bottie exchanged glances with a bemused looking Tara, thinking that somehow she was missing something. "But, Rona --"

"Andrew gets one to his credit. We slayers can't chalk up all the kills, can we?" Shouldering her crossbow, she headed off toward the other girls on her team.

"Come on, Bottie, let's make use of some of this mess." Tara started to lead her away, but the robot gestured toward the nearest bush.

"There's a stake under the --"

"Leave it." Smiling, Tara scooped up a bandage and tore it open. "We have plenty of stakes."

Standing still while Tara bandaged her elbow, Buffybot pondered what had just occurred. It seemed some of Andrew's closest associates implicitly agreed to hide something from him, but why? After all, it didn't matter who killed the vampires, as long as they were killed. "I've been wondering something about Andrew."

"What's that, Bottie?" Tara finished her ministrations and then, because her flashlight had been broken in the melee, let Bottie lead her toward the road.

"Well, Andrew's so good at organizing. He keeps our records, and makes sure we're supplied, and helps with the weapons inventory. We couldn't run headquarters without him."

"That's true."

"Everybody appreciates that, and everybody likes him even though he can be really annoying and once stabbed his best friend to death."

"Also true."

"So why does he keep insisting on field work? He's not good at field work. He keeps getting hurt, and I don't like it when he gets hurt."

Tara was silent for a moment. Then she turned, looking Bottie in the eyes. "Some people don't appreciate what they're good at. Even if they're very good at what they do, they want to do something else, instead --even if it's something they don't do well."

"But doesn't he know you don't have to be a fighter to be a hero?"

"He's getting there. He still blusters and tells tales, but he's been getting better at directing the slayers, instead of charging in ahead of them. Meanwhile, give him this little victory, to soothe his ego."

Bottie sighed. "Being real is really hard."

"You're telling me?" Tara reached up to pull on the right shoulder of her blouse, revealing a place where the material had been ripped open at the seam. An angry bruise was beginning to blossom on the pale skin beneath it. "Who would have guessed staking a three foot high vampire would be so hard?"


	15. Seasonal Stalker

_Title: Seasonal Stalker_

_Author: ozma914_

_characters: Xander, Faith, Dana, Tara, Buffybot, Kara_

_Rated: PG_

_Warnings: decoration death (!)_

_Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss and co._

_Summary: The gang discovers still another danger of dealing with a slightly deranged slayer. 890 words. (Note: This takes place in my "Four Friends" universe, in which two questionable magical spells, one intended to repair Dana's shattered mind, led to the resurrection of the Buffybot and the secret return of Tara to a more or less living body.) _

_Special thanks again to Ainon for her beta skills!_

**SEASONAL STALKER**

Female shrieks and the sound of a struggle brought Xander and Faith running for the Watcher's Headquarters day room. Xander froze in the doorway, shocked into silence by the sight before him.

Red was splattered across the entire lounge. It spread in an explosion-like pattern across the carpeting, clung to the walls, settled over the now fallen Christmas tree. Here and there were also bits of white, and on closer inspection Xander realized, to his horror, that the white appeared to be hair.

In the middle of the mess, still plugged into the wall, a small fan lay on its side, covered in dents and making sickly buzzing noises as its blades contacted the plastic housing.

"Whoa," Xander finally managed to say.

In the middle of the room Dana struggled, unable to break the grips of the Buffybot on one side and the slayer Kara on the other. "He's evil!" Dana screamed. "Evil!"

Looking around, Xander caught sight of sandal-clad feet and a green skirt with white snowflakes, sticking out from under the Christmas tree like a winter themed version of the Wicked Witch. How appropriate that comparison was became apparent when Faith brushed by him, rushing forward to move the tree and help Tara to her feet. The young witch's hair was a tangled mess, and she was covered in ribbons of red, but otherwise she appeared unharmed.

"What's going on?" Xander demanded, as a bemused looking Faith brushed pieces of balloon-like material from Tara's clothes. After a moment Faith stopped, giving Tara's torso a puzzled look; that's when Xander realized the front of the witch's green sweater had been torn off, revealing a white camisole. He gulped and turned away.

"Evil!" Dana screamed. She arched her back, forcing Bottie and Kara to brace themselves.

"It's not real, Dana," Bottie assured her in a calming voice. Kara, her eyes wide, couldn't seem to get any words out.

"This –" Something fell from the ceiling, landing on Xander's head. He grabbed at it with a barely stifled scream, and came up with what appeared to be a ball of cotton at the end of a small cone of red cloth. "Um …"

Someone was giggling. Looking around, Xander realized it was Faith, who smirked as she picked a small white cylinder from Tara's hair. "Hey, Dana gave Tara the finger."

Tara sent Faith dazed look. "I just walked in the door and she grabbed me by the sweater …"

"Why didn't you just go all ghost on her?" Faith asked.

"It happened so fast ... guess I've been working too hard on interacting with the real world."

"Sorry," Dana murmured, sounding contrite but still on the edge of hysteria. "He was trying to feel you up."

Everyone fell silent. Faith, eyebrows arched, looked at Tara, who defensively crossed her arms over her chest.

"Who?" Kara finally ventured.

"Him!" Dana pointed at the fan, just as it sparked and ground to a stop. "Santa Clause is a pervert!"

Another silence.

"He is?" Bottie asked, confusion plain in her voice.

"He's a stalker!"

"A stalker?" Kara repeated.

Dana nodded vigorously. "He sees you when you're sleeping … he knows when you're awake … he knows when you've been bad or good – he's everywhere! And he wants us to take presents from him!"

Another silence. Generally, Xander reflected, there were a lot of silences during conversations with Dana.

Faith grinned at Tara, whose mouth was gaping open. "You had him on your chest. Santa copped a feel!"

"Well …" Tara's hands fluttered, until she caught Xander's gaze and crossed her arms again. "It wasn't the real Santa …"

"It wasn't?" Dana asked, sounding flummoxed.

"No," Xander told her, "and neither was the one by the door."

"But he said 'ho ho ho' when I walked by. That's not a nice word. It means 'prostitute'. A prostitute is someone who –"

"We know!" Xander held a hand up. "We know. But he didn't mean it that way. And he wasn't a he, he was an it, and it wasn't alive."

"He was moving!"

"Yeah, that would be the air being blown up his skirt." Xander motioned to take in the bits of red and white rubber scattered around the room. "So, whose bright idea was it to decorate first, then surprise Dana?"

Very slowly, Bottie and Kara raised their hands.

"The inflatable Santa was on sale," Kara explained.

Someone made a choking sound. Xander was able to track that to Faith, who had a hand cupped over her mouth.

Well, thought Xander, crisis over -- unless Andrew walked in the door with a pillow strapped to his belly. He flashed a concerned look toward the door. "Say, why don't you guys take Dana to some non-decorated place and explain to her again the whole fantasy-reality thing?"

Nodding, Kara and Bottie took Dana by the hands and began leading her away. Their friend gave the broken fan a hard stare as they passed. "I'm not sure I killed him enough."

Tara followed, arms still crossed. "Um, I'm going to change."

Faith stopped laughing long enough to choke out, "Don't put on the elf sweater!"

And Xander heard Kara explain, as they moved out of sight, "See, Santa's not real – sorry for the fright."

"There was a Saint Nicholas," Bottie said, nice as she could.

Dana nodded thoughtfully. "Oh yes -- he was good."


	16. Closure

**Two former lovers are trapped on an elevator. Not as clichéd as you think ... well, not quite. Post-Chosen, set in my universe where questionable magic has (more or less) brought the Buffybot and Tara back to life, and partially healed the slayer Dana.**

Special thanks to my marvelous beta Ainon, and to the LiveJournal site "HolidayBtVS", which was looking for Valentine's Day stories, of which this is one -- sort of.

-#-

**CLOSURE**

"Hold the elevator, please!"

Willow grabbed at the door as it started to close, and a whirlwind of flying hair and swirling peasant skirt hurled in. The door closed fully before either realized who they were sharing a ride with.

"Willow. Hi." Willow's dead lover clasped a stack of red and pink packages to her chest.

"Hi, Tara." Her voice was an octave higher than normal, and Willow had the feeling her eyes were twice their normal size, too. Why should sharing an elevator with Tara's ghost make her nervous? They'd talked before. She'd known for close to a year now that after dying Tara's spirit had remained, following the Scoobies to Chicago and learning to interact again with the real world.

_"Your shirt …" Tara fell over, a bloody hole in her chest._

With a shudder, Willow watched the numbers beside her rise as the elevator shot upward. "So … how are you?" A strange question to ask a dead person.

"Oh, fine."

They fell silent, at opposite ends of the small compartment, shuffling back and forth as the express elevator –

Stopped.

Two sets of eyes turned toward the panel, which showed each floor even though this particular elevator stopped only at the ground, the roof, or floors fourteen and fifteen. Willow had pushed the button for fourteen, intending to go to her quarters and change before that evening's Valentine's Day party. That button was lit; but so was the indicator for the thirteenth floor. The door didn't open. "That's not good."

"Push it again," Tara suggested.

The redhead pushed fourteen, then fifteen for good measure. No change. "Heh. Modern technology."

"At least the lights are still on."

Willow nodded, knowing Tara had never been a fan of darkness. She remembered Xander and Buffy helping her through a panic attack the first time she realized Tara's body would be underground, and how she'd impulsively placed a flashlight in the coffin.

Shaking herself, Willow opened a small door to pull out the emergency phone, and gave a "Yay!" when someone immediately picked up. "Dana? Hey, we're stuck in the elevator."

"I know," Dana told her, "We're working on it. Shouldn't be too long."

"Dana's working on it," She told Tara after hanging up.

"Dana? Maybe we should brace for impact."

Willow gave a nervous laugh, and Tara smiled. They stared past each other for a moment, then Tara gestured toward the single package Willow held. "How's Kennedy?"

The redhead looked down at the rectangular red box, and felt a blush rising to her face. "How did you know this is for Kennedy?"

"Come on, Willow. You know I prefer flowers."

She'd clearly meant it as a joke, but for a second Willow panicked, wondering if she should have gotten Tara anything. She tried to deflect the implication by making a joke of her own, pointing to Tara's stack of packages. "Well, at least I'm not dividing my affections."

"True." Crouching down, Tara put each box on the floor in turn. "This is for Dana, she likes plain milk chocolate – no surprises. This one's a book for Buffybot – she's been reading Harry Potter. Mixed chocolates for Kara – she _does_ like the surprises. These are also mixed chocolates, for Richard –"

"Richard the watcher?" Just recently Richard had let Willow in on a big secret about Tara, and it wasn't at all clear that Tara wanted people to know. "Are you sweet on him?"

Tara hesitated.

_Oh my gosh! She _is_ sweet on him!_

"Well … Richard's wedding anniversary is Valentine's Day." She stacked up the rest of the presents and stood.

"Oh." _Oh._

"Needless to say, he hasn't celebrated it since his wife died, so I figured maybe it was time for him to … I don't know … move on. Like you did, with Kennedy."

Willow stared at her, eyes wide.

"Oh – no, Willow, I didn't mean –"

"It's okay, it's –"

"It's good that you moved on. How were you to know that I'd end up … coming back?" She put a hand on Willow's arm, and the witch felt her former girlfriend's body heat again, for the first time since that awful moment. She felt an overwhelming urge to let Tara know that she knew.

"You could go," Willow heard herself say.

Tara tilted her head, looking confused.

"I mean, you're a ghost, right? You could just go through the walls. I could watch your packages for you. I'd be all right, really – they're working on it."

The silence stretched on, as Tara opened and closed her mouth, then looked away. "I – I can't leave."

Not leave _you._ Just leave. Well, now was as good a time as ever. "Tara, I know about the Camelot Spell. I know you're in a kind of living body again. And I know Kennedy did it."

"How –?"

"Um, Richard figured it out, and told me." Which was true as far as it went. She hadn't thought this through, Willow realized. How to tell Tara that a night of black magic powered shenanigans had been turned into nothing more than a dream, and that Tara's memories had been tampered with yet again?

They stared at each other for a long moment, former lovers together again. "I am kind of sweet on Richard," Tara finally admitted.

It was a comment meant to convey much more than what it said, and it brought Willow a sense of relief that made her feel guilty. "But he's almost twice your age … and, well, a guy."

"I'm not going to _tell_ him, Wil. After all, I'm not truly alive – this body's like a package, just holding my spirit in a shape that happens to look like me. It wouldn't be right for anything to … happen."

Willow nodded, and tried not to show how terribly sad she felt for both of them.

"Meanwhile, you've got Kennedy, and she loves you so much that she tried to bring me back to life because she thought that would make you happy. That's why I didn't tell you about the Camelot spell – because doing that proves how much she deserves you, and I didn't want to complicate that."

"I guess that proves how wonderful _you_ are." Impulsively, Willow pulled Tara into a hug, and when she released the other woman they were both smiling. "I do love Kennedy."

"Of course you do!"

"But I also love having you back in my life. So – no more uncomfortable passing in the hallways? Friends?"

"Only if you admit that's really lingerie in that box."

Willow giggled and blushed at the same time, and at that moment the elevator lurched to life.

In the brightly lit control room, Dana turned questioningly to her cohorts. "I don't understand. What did stranding them in the elevator accomplish?"

"They won't be so weird when they're in the same room anymore," explained Buffybot, who'd been studying psychology. "Plus, we learned all sorts of neat secrets."

"That's for sure." Looking dazed, Kara fell into a chair. "My watcher has a crush on my dad. I'm going to go vomit now."

"The important thing," Buffybot told them, while Dana hastily stepped away from Kara, "is that they've gotten some closure, and they've defined their relationship. I'll bet that would make Kennedy happy."

Kara nodded. "If we'd dared to tell her we were trying this."

The Buffybot was practically jumping up and down with excitement. "Do you think Kennedy will model the lingerie for us?"

Dana looked intrigued. Kara turned a little greener.


	17. Ghosts Can't Cry

_**Post-"Chosen": The gang returns from a mission that went horribly wrong, only to learn something worse happened while they were away.**_

_This was the result of a challenge by SLPodcast over on Livejournal, who listed a series of first lines and challenged writers to turn one of them into stories. I got props for using not one, but four of the lines in the same story! For whatever reason doesn't seem to want to let me put up her url, so anyone who wants to see the original post let me know, and I'll e-mail it to them._

**Ghosts Don't Cry**

"Hard day?"

Buffybot had a bright smile on her face, and seemed completely unmindful of the awful stench that had driven everyone else from the hotel pool's shower room.

Three girls -- two slayers and a watcher trainee -- stood side by side in the shower, trying to wash off a yellowish green gunk which, during the trip back to their Detroit hotel, had worked its way into every conceivable opening in their clothing.

"What do you think?" Dawn snarled. Beside her, Dana wore a deep frown as she scrubbed a layer of skin from her torso. Worse, it had attached itself to their hair and apparently had some kind of static electric charge. Kara kept rubbing soap into her scalp and smooshing her hair down, only to have it jump back up again with a crackling noise.

"This so sucks." Dawn had the worst of it – her long, straight hair now stood straight out, brushed the ceiling, and threatened to impale anyone who came close to her.

They'd had to walk seventeen blocks – taxi drivers actually sped up to avoid them. If it wasn't for the science fiction convention downtown, they'd surely have been detained by the police.

"You wanted to come on the mission," Kara reminded her.

Buffybot remembered her human double once saying that "Careful what you wish for" never occurred to Dawn. Possibly that was changing.

How could she lighten the mood? "Your hair is stupid," the Buffybot smiled.

Three pairs of eyes speared her with glares. No, Bottie concluded, it wasn't funny. "Sorry. Maybe I can help."

"You could have helped by being there," Kara grumbled, as Bottie stepped into the shower with them. The robot figured wet clothes were a small price to pay, considering her own hair remained clean and shiny – if now damp.

"We were getting ready to head out when Tara got an e-mail," Bottie explained, as she experimentally touched Dawn's hair. Ouch – sharp. "It was from Riley Finn -- who as you all know is bloody stupid -- to Willow. He found Tara's gravestone in the debris they're excavating from Sunnydale, and asked if we wanted it as a memorial."

The other three froze, except for Dawn's hair, which slowly lowered into a more natural position as Bottie absorbed some of the mystical static that imbued it. "How did Tara get the e-mail?" Kara asked.

Bottie moved her hands to Kara's frizzy brown afro, and after a moment her locks began to fall into place. "Willow forwarded it to Giles, but to his watcher's e-mail address instead of his private one."

"Oh!" Dawn put a hand to her mouth, but immediately pulled it away – her palms were still stained with the demon gunk. "It automatically copied to all the other watchers – including Tara."

"We thought you had them bottled up in the old factory." Bottie approached Dana slowly – touching her without plenty of warning sometimes triggered a defensive reaction – but the slayer pushed her head forward like a cat waiting to be petted, so Bottie went ahead with her antistatic repair job. "That's right. Poor Tara – she started crying, so I stayed with her; we didn't know you were going to move in without us. I left her sleeping in the room when I got your message."

"We didn't move in," Dawn told her dryly, "they caught sight of us and came out."

"We need to work on our stealth," Kara added.

Dana ducked her head under the shower, coming out looking like the girl from The Grudge. "But … ghosts can't cry."

"Tara's more than a ghost." Kara reached for a towel. "Come on – she needs us."

The others quickly began to dry off, but Bottie stopped them before they could dress. "Um … your hair looks fine now, but …"

Dawn sighed. "Let me guess – we stink?"

Bottie nodded, happy that she didn't have to say it herself. "Let's all stop at the gift shop and buy Tara some perfume!"


	18. Search and Rescue

_**When a new watcher goes missing, the team dispatched to find him learns the problem is not at all what they'd imagined.**_

_Characters: Tara, Buffybot, Dana, OC_

_This was written for a sins and virtue challenge over at __**goodevil**__ on LiveJournal. Being a glutton for punishment, I tried to stick in as many of the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Cardinal Virtues as I could; see if you can pick them out._

_Many thanks to Emily at _**Awesomely Rad and Co.**_ for her beta skills; my regular beta, Ainon, has just moved to another country and was a bit too busy this time around._

Search and Rescue

Richard Philips did a double take when a young woman, eyes wary and dark hair tangled around her face, perched carefully on one of the empty seats at his restaurant table. "Ah," was all the watcher said, as he examined his new companion carefully.

"Can I have your ice cubes?" she asked. "We ran out in Muncie."

Smiling, Richard pushed the glass he'd just finished draining across the table, and watched as Dana fished an ice cube out and began crunching on it. "It probably tastes like tea."

The girl scrunched her nose up, then nodded. "Xander was afraid you'd started drinking. I mean, drinking alcohol."

"I have my own demons."

A waitress appeared beside them, sending the newcomer a friendly smile even as her eyes swept over the young slayer's black hooded sweatshirt. It was close to 80 degrees already. "Can I get you anything?"

Before Dana could speak, Richard put in, "Could you give us a few minutes? We're going to be joined by at least three more young ladies, and they'll all be hungry."

Even as the waitress moved away, a click and hiss of static made the newcomer jump. Richard heard a faint, urgent voice: "Dana! Where are you? Why aren't you in position?"

Dana's cheeks reddened. "I was supposed to be in position."

Richard held his hand out, and after a moment she pulled the small walkie from her hoodie pocket and handed it to him. Smiling, he triggered the mic. "Dana's come in from the cold, so to speak. Breakfast for everyone -- I'm buying." Handing the device back to her, he looked outside through the restaurant's picture window.

The red courthouse that dominated the center of the little town filled the window, even from across the street, but Richard's attention centered on the cars in angled parking spaces around the square. After a moment he picked out a black Ford Taurus, which had illegally backed into a space in such a way that it was pointed right at the restaurant. Holding up a hand, Richard waved and then gestured the occupant inside.

"Am I in trouble?" Dana asked, more in curiosity than fear.

"Nah." Richard watched Tara get out of the car; at the same time his daughter, Kara, emerged from behind a tree on the opposite end of the block and pocketed her own walkie. With an exchange of shrugs, they both started to cross the street. "What made you come inside, Dana?"

"Well, you didn't look like you were in trouble. Just -- lonely."

A voice behind them put in, "When I came in from the back I thought he looked sad." The Buffybot pulled up a chair across from him, then gestured at the looming building behind her. "Isn't that courthouse cool? It's over a century old."

"Couldn't they afford a new one?" Dana asked. Tilting her head, she eyed the turrets and steep copper roof until the final two members of the team entered the restaurant.

"So." Once they'd been seated, Richard let his gaze roam over the four females. "They sent the Four Friends after me."

"Why does everyone call us that?" Bottie wondered. "We're _all_ friends."

"We spend a lot of time together," Tara explained, before turning her attention back to Richard. "You look tired."

Kara just stared at her father, with a sullen frown.

"I signed out," Richard told them, trying to not feel defensive. "Giles gave me a leave of absence, it's not like I got kidnapped."

"You were heading toward Madison!" Kara clutched the table so hard it groaned in protest. "You were going home without me. I haven't been home since I became a slayer!"

Clearing his throat, Richard pointedly gazed around at the other diners, some of whom were trying hard to appear not to be listening. "We're strangers in a small town," he reminded them. "Let's not call attention to ourselves."

"Speaking of which," Bottie said, "How did we end up in Albion, Indiana? I mean, the courthouse is on the historic register, and it has a well known animal park, and it's in the smallest township in the United States, and it's called the Gateway to Chain O' Lakes State Park, and --"

"But you weren't expecting me to show up somewhere as a tourist," Richard interrupted.

"It's okay if you are." Dana scooped out another ice cube, examined it critically, then popped it into her mouth.

"No it's not!" Kara protested, but before she could push the issue the waitress arrived again, giving Richard the perfect opportunity to change the subject.

"Allow me." He pointed to each of them in turn. "Kara will have the bacon and egg breakfast meal with a Diet Coke; Dana will have steak and eggs, the steak rare and the eggs runny, and orange juice; Tara will have a half stack of your wheat blueberry pancakes and milk; and Bot -- Buffy will have the full sampler meal and coffee. I'll take a half order of biscuits and gravy and another glass of iced tea."

"That sampler meal's pretty big," the waitress warned, giving the small blonde a critical once over.

Richard just smiled. "Buffy's got a hollow leg."

As soon as the waitress left, Bottie turned to him and hissed, "I do not!"

"To me the big question isn't how I ended up in Albion; it's how someone could possibly have found me here."

He'd looked at Tara when he said that, but the witch raised her hands defensively. "GPS."

"Oh. Of course. " _My world's a different place, now._ He shifted in his seat, and felt the newspaper article crumple in his shirt pocket. He'd been a fool. With good reason, maybe, but a fool nonetheless. "Fine, but first thing's first -- did you get permission to come after me?"

The others looked away, and in the uncomfortable silence that followed Richard tried not to laugh. He could criticize Tara; after all, she was supposed to be this group's watcher, not their friend, and this particular group was more challenging than most. But judging from the expression on her face the witch had already come to that conclusion, and he didn't have the heart to twist that particular knife in any deeper.

"We're on a training mission," Tara finally murmured.

Now Richard did laugh. "Let me guess -- you're practicing tracking?"

"It wasn't very challenging," Dana told him. "We just followed the dot on the computer screen."

A pair of departing customers were taking their time leaving the area, so Richard sat in silence until they gave up and, with one last questioning look, walked out the door. "I appreciate your concern, but this is something I felt I had to do alone."

"_What_ was?" Kara demanded.

"Order your food. Yep, I had to do that alone."

Kara sent him a confused look, then rolled her eyes when she realized breakfast had arrived. She waited until the waitress left, then shoved a piece of bacon into her mouth and spoke again before she even started chewing. "It's not like you to just suddenly -- oh my God that's delicious."

"You didn't get anything to eat overnight?" Richard stared down at his biscuits and gravy, but his mind went immediately to the newsprint in his pocket, and with a flash of memories his appetite vanished again.

"You just kept driving," Bottie told him. "First southeast, then northeast -- we grabbed some snacks at a gas station, but that was it." She was turning the plate around and around, trying to figure out what to try first.

"We really should keep a stash in each of the cars." Tara reached for the butter, then sent Richard a sharp look. "You're not eating?"

Under her watchful gaze, he took a bite. He tasted nothing; it was like chewing cardboard. Although she started eating herself, Tara kept glancing over at him.

When her bacon was gone Kara forked up a piece of egg, then began again. "You don't just go off doing things, Dad. You plan, you map, you -- um. Yum."

Beside her, Bottie finally took a bite. Then she rotated the plate and took a bite of something else, and continued until she'd sampled all of the sampler. "Oh -- it's the French toast. The French toast is perfect! I want all the French toast!" She started to call the waitress, but Tara stopped her with a look.

"Finish what's on your plate first, sweetie --"

Bottie's spoon and fork became a blur, and moments later all the food was gone. She held her hand up for the waitress, while Dana gave her a wondrous look and Tara turned a little green.

Kara had missed it all, her eyes closed as she chewed eggs slowly, with a blissful expression.

"Looks like I picked the right restaurant," Richard murmured.

The waitress had missed it all, but looked startled at the sight of Bottie's bare plate. "Give me all your French toast," the robot told her.

"Um … you mean a full plate?"

"No, I mean everything you've got! The whole stock."

"She means a full plate," Richard told the stunned waitress, giving Bottie his patented Meaningful Look.

"Yes, that's right." Bottie meekly sat back in her chair, then added, "Completely full."

"And could I have a glass of ice cubes?" Dana added.

The waitress went off again, while Richard mentally calculated a 20 tip.

He felt a touch on his arm, and looked over to see Tara's concerned face. "You don't have to tell us what you were doing --"

"Yes he does!" Kara protested.

"Kara, your father has a life of his own."

"No he doesn't! Not anymore. None of us does, and even if he did, he's also got a daughter, and I have a right to know what he's up to!" Kara's voice rose despite Bottie's attempt to quiet her, and the slayer's fork bent double in her hands. "You need to think about people besides yourself! Don't you realize how much I worried about you, when you just took off without even staying in touch? I was worried sick, and --" She stopped short, eyes wide. "Oh God, I'm you."

The waitress set a glass of ice and a plate heaped with French toast on the table, then pointedly stared at the doubled over fork. "Put it on the bill," Richard told her wearily, and to his surprise she didn't question it.

"Kara, I'm only going to say this once, and I'm going to say it nicely." Richard used his authority voice, guaranteed to gain the attention of any sixteen year old girl, slayer or not. "You're right."

Kara blinked.

"I messed up. I shouldn't have just taken off in the state I was in. Giles said as much, and I'm guessing his permission for you to go on a 'training exercise' was a wink and a nod."

"Giles winks?" Dana mumbled through an ice cube, causing Bottie to pause, forkful of French toast halfway to her mouth. After a moment Bottie shook her head, apparently concluding it would never happen, and resumed eating.

"Then why --"

Richard took his daughter's hand, but spoke to the others. "I was a volunteer firefighter in Madison, for fourteen years, starting when I was twenty-one. I loved it. I only gave it up because my books started selling, and my celebrity status -- small though it was -- caused problems at emergency scenes."

"You were a firefighter?" Dana stared at him, eyes wide.

"He was their training officer," Tara told him, which brought her a startled look from Richard. Cheeks pink, the witch looked away. "I hear things."

"Yeah, well … I gave it up for another reason, too. My wife had died, and after a time I came to realize it was too dangerous -- too much chance that Kara might lose her other parent."

"But this life is pretty dangerous," Bottie pointed out. "Even for watchers."

"We didn't know about this life back then." Richard looked toward his daughter, knowing he couldn't hold back anymore. "Firefighters still die ... did die."

He felt Kara pull her hand away, and saw the shock of realization on her face. "No. W-Who?"

"It was Greg Cloud." Kara gasped, and as her father went on talking, tears came to her eyes. "The assistant chief e-mailed a link to the news report to me."

"He died in a fire?" Dana asked, her voice small.

"Yes. Roof collapse." His voice sounded strange to his own ears. It must have to the others, too, because Dana swallowed the ice cube and sat very still, while Bottie stopped eating and leaned forward attentively. Tara held her breath, making Richard briefly wonder if she needed to breathe at all in this new body.

But he didn't wonder about that for long; he'd spoken to no one about this since he got the news the day before, and he experienced a sudden need to make someone understand why it was so important. "Greg was a friend of mine in school -- a few years behind me, but we shared similar interests, and our parents were friends. I was on the Madison City Department, and he joined a neighboring company, Kent, just after his eighteenth birthday. That's where you could find him from then on, whenever he wasn't working or with his wife. Training, drills, fund raisers, meetings -- he was always there. He made all the calls, of course."

A tear worked its way down Kara's cheek.

"I remember once --" Richard cleared his throat. "One time we were venting, when the fire broke through a window right where we'd placed our ladder. We were trapped. It was a weekday -- manpower was low, and there was no one on the ground to put up another ladder. There we were, standing on this slanted roof, with a jet of fire coming out of our vent hole behind us and the ladder in front of us engulfed in flames, so hot the aluminum started to melt.

"All of the sudden Greg looked at me and said, 'If we don't get you back in time to take Kara to her karate class, she's gonna kill me'."

The girls stared at him. He started to make a joke, something about how it had seemed funny at the time, but then he heard a great sob and realized it had burst from his own throat. "It was a truss roof," he gasped. "Cheap to build, easy to burn. We call them killer roofs, because they fail so quickly in a fire. Every time we tried to get them banned the construction industry would trot out their damn lawyers, and their army of lobbyists would head up to the statehouse to grease the palms of every senator they could corner …"

He blinked, and although his vision was still blurred he could see Bottie and Dana staring, mouths agape, trying to process the information. Teams streamed down Kara's face, and Tara sat very still, a hand clamped over her mouth.

"I'm sorry, honey," Richard told his daughter. "I was in a blind rage. All I wanted to do was go to Madison, track down the son of a bitch who built that house, and strangle the life out of him until he was just as dead as Gregory Cloud."

He rubbed his eyes. "But it's never that easy. Halfway there I came to my senses and started back, but I still wasn't thinking straight. I was so damned angry and … well, a couple of hours later I realized I'd taken a wrong turn and was on I69, so I turned back west, then decided to stop and collect myself. And here I am, two hours out of Chicago, with a dead friend and no more answers now than when I got this." Reaching into his pocket, Richard pulled out the newspaper printout and passed it to Kara, who accepted it without a word.

"He was Kara's godfather," he told the others.

After a moment Bottie scooted over to Kara, putting her arm around the slayer as Kara read the article. Richard sat back and closed his eyes, feeling raw, then felt someone wiping his cheeks with a napkin. He opened his eyes, expecting to see Tara, and to his great surprise discovered Dana was the one drying his tears.

"You need ice," she murmured, and without waiting for his consent pressed an ice cube to his lips.

Richard chewed on it without comment; to his knowledge this was the first time Dana had voluntarily touched a male without then killing something, so he wouldn't have known what to say, anyway.

From his other side, Tara again reached out to touch his hand. "We'd like to go to the funeral with you."

Funeral. Yes. Another funeral for a dead firefighter. Nodding, Richard gratefully squeezed her hand in return. "It's tomorrow. We can spend the night at my house in Madison -- that's where I left my dress uniform, anyway."

Dana sat back, looking satisfied that an action of some sort was about to be taken, while Bottie's panicked gaze swept down over her own bright, flowered sundress. "But we're not dressed for a funeral."

"Council credit card," Tara told her with a slight smile.

Now Richard turned to Kara, knowing he should have told her right away, knowing he shouldn't have gone off, mad and with no plan other than to commit violence against someone who was just doing a job. "Are you all right with that?"

"Yeah." She seemed about to say more -- whether an apology, more accusations, or something that would have just come out as awkward in this situation he didn't know. "It'll be nice to have our new friends with us … when we say goodbye."

Decision made, they rose to leave, to head south again, and Richard threw enough cash on the table to cover meal, tip, and damaged cutlery. They paused only a moment, when Bottie turned to the concerned looking waitress who'd been hovering nearby.

"Can we have a doggie bag?"

_A/N: Gregory Cloud died at a house fire in rural Jefferson County, near Madison, on November 6, 2006. He died not of a roof collapse, but of smoke inhalation after a flashover separated him from the rest of his company and trapped him inside. The Chief of the Madison City Fire Department was seriously injured when he led a rescue attempt moments later. I was inspired to write this story because I'd established previously that Richard and Kara had lived in Madison before she became a slayer, and that Richard had been a member of the volunteer fire department there._

_This story, then, is dedicated to Cloud and all the firefighters who die in the line of duty, at the rate of about 100 per year in the United States alone._

**Fire Department**

One of the largest volunteer fire departments in Indiana, The Madison Fire Department is organizationally unique in that it is comprised of six independent fire companies, each operating under separate contract with the City. The first of those companies, Fairplay Fire Co. #1, is the oldest fire company in Indiana, having been established in 1841. Washington Fire Co. # 2 operates out of the oldest active fire station in Indiana which was built in 1848. The department is known for its colorful apparatus which include engines that are blue, white and the traditional red and an aerial ladder that is Kelly green.


	19. Special Delivery

Special Delivery

_Riley finds something in the ruins of Sunnydale that he thinks should be returned to the Scoobies. But he isn't prepared for what lies in wait for him at the new Watcher's Headquarters …_

**Special Delivery**

Three people waited for Riley Finn as he drove his Hum-Vee into the basement parking garage of a Chicago high rise, but he still took a moment to examine the area. It wasn't every day a guy got to see a secret Watcher's Council installation, after all.

A line of nondescript sedans, vans, and SUV's filled much of the area. Nothing flashy there; it wouldn't do to attract attention while out hunting vampires and demons. Opposite those vehicles, however, was a more interesting line: a yellow school bus sporting the name West Chicago School for Girls; a blue church bus that announced it belonged to the Missouri Nondenominational Church of Christ; another Hummer that any civilian would assume was military, if they didn't notice the lack of lettering; two ambulances; a black hearse; and a long white limousine.

Not for the first time, he wondered where Rupert Giles had found the funds to rebuild this organization. Best not to know.

Security cameras hung from every corner, and at the far end stood two doors, to a stairway and an elevator. What appeared to be a fluorescent light was set above each, bathing them in blue.

"They stole that detector from us," Riley muttered as he climbed out of his own vehicle.

"Riley, hi!" Willow swept forward to give him a hug and he took her in his arms in return, grateful for the warm greeting -- especially considering the circumstances.

"It's great to see you again." He looked past her, to where a rather short girl in her mid teens, with brown hair falling to her shoulders, stood with her arms crossed. "And you, Kara."

"Um, thanks." The last time they'd met hadn't been under the best of circumstances: She and Robin Wood had competed with the military in a search for demon eggs, at a Cleveland Hospital. The fact that Spike ended up taking their eggs from under their collective noses didn't exactly make for a happy ending.

Willow gestured toward the other slayer, a slim girl who looked up at him through a tangle of dark hair with wary, wide eyes. "This is Dana, I don't think you've met her."

"No --" He took a step forward with the intention of shaking the girl's hand but Dana jerked backward, fists clenching as she double checked her escape route. Kara gave a quick shake of her head. "Nice to meet you," he finished, covering his embarrassment by walking to the rear of his Hummer. "I guess you'll be wanting to see this …"

The women followed, none enthusiastically. "I can't believe you found it," Willow murmured, leading the others.

"Neither can I," another, softer voice said just as Riley opened the rear gate. Startled, he jerked around to discover they'd been joined by the one person he'd least expected. She stood there staring at him, one hand on her hip.

"Buffy." She wore a yellow sundress, and his eyes found the hollow of her throat where a small silver cross hung, while his mind remembered the scent of vanilla and the taste of her skin. "I heard you were in Scotland."

"I came back -- had trouble with the language." She smiled then, and it was with the same warmth she'd had during the best of their times together. But then it dropped into a frown, and she gestured toward the tarp-shrouded object in the back of the Hummer. "Let's see it."

For some reason, he got the strangest feeling that she'd actually said "You're married", but he maintained the presence of mind to turn and pull the tarp away.

The granite slab said simply _Tara McClay_, and gave two dates. She'd been twenty-two, Riley suddenly realized. Behind him, he heard Willow's sharp intake of breath.

"It's very nice," Dana said, sounding doubtful.

"It seems a little … plain," Kara added.

"I think it was just fine," said another new voice, a voice that made Riley freeze. Only his eyes moved, tracking hard to his left, where he saw Tara McClay standing before him. It turned out Buffy wasn't the last person he'd expected to see, after all.

"I mean, really, is a tombstone so important?" She wore a rainbow colored peasant skirt and a gauzy, long sleeved top of a similar color, and seemed completely solid. "It's how we live our lives that's important, isn't it?"

With great difficulty, Riley looked away toward the others. They'd all bent forward to examine the tombstone, and none seemed to notice that someone else had spoken. "They didn't think Tara would want anything extravagant," Willow was telling the slayers. "I was -- um, unavailable when they picked it out, but I think they did a good job."

Buffy laid a hand lightly on her friend's arm. "She'd have loved it. I mean, as much as you could love something, under the circumstances."

Riley jerked around. Tara still stood there, smiling. "Love maybe isn't the word!" she told him.

"Riley?" He turned again, to see Buffy watching him with concern. "You okay?"

"Um --"

"They can't see me," Tara said.

"Why, I -- yes, I -- thought I felt something." He glanced over his shoulder. Still there.

"It can be spooky," Dana said, in a voice that was itself rather spooky. "I mean, with the tombstone and all."

"I wouldn't know why I would feel something," Riley said carefully, "when no one else would."

"Is it a tombstone?" Kara asked. "Or would it be called a headstone, or a gravestone? What's the difference?"

Willow finally looked away from the object, her brow furrowed. "I don't think there is one."

"I'm just saying …" Riley took a breath. This shouldn't rattle him -- he'd seen all sorts of things, after all. "If there was a presence, why would I feel it and not you?" He gave Tara a significant look.

"Oh, it's an afterwordly thing. There are rules. I can only be seen by people with homosexual tendencies."

He stumbled back, waving his arms frantically. "I don't have those!"

"Those what?" Buffy asked, looking puzzled.

"Those, um -- ideas, on whether the words mean different thing. Yeah. Stone's a stone, I guess."

"I guess." Willow shrugged, and turned back to the stone.

For a moment the others followed her gaze, giving Riley a chance to jerk a thumb toward Willow and give Tara a challenging glare.

"She's too close to see me -- emotionally, I mean. And the others? No gay tendencies."

He lowered his voice, and distinctly spelled it out. "I. Do not. Have homosexual. Tendencies."

Rubbing her chin, Tara examined Riley critically, then shrugged. "Denial is a dangerous thing."

"It's not denial!"

The other women whirled around to stare at him.

"It's not _The Nile_." Riley nodded, then began yanking at the carpet he'd laid the tombstone on. "You won't find tombstones there. At The Nile. Because they mummified people, back then, so you'd find --"

Kara reached around him, gripped the stone, and carefully set it down on the concrete floor beside the hearse. "Sarcophagus, or something -- that's what they have along the Nile, right?" She stared at it for a long moment, as if trying to concentrate on something, then turned away from everyone and bowed her head. Suddenly her shoulders started to shake, and Riley realized she must be crying. Strange -- Willow and Buffy seemed rock solid, and none of the new slayers had ever met Tara. Why would Kara be affected so?

"Willow must have told them all lots of stories about me," Tara explained, as if reading his mind. "I hope she told everyone how much we meant to each other. I mean, gay people shouldn't hide their feelings."

_Okay, that's it._ Striding forward, Riley awkwardly patted Kara on the shoulder. "It's okay to let your feelings out -- nobody here is hiding their feelings. We're all very open. And secure."

By now Buffy had abandoned any thoughts of the tombstone, and was staring at Riley in open concern. "Are you sure you're alright? You look -- haunted."

Willow also turned away from the stone and walked to Riley, passing within inches of Tara's apparition. "Did you remember to use those wards I gave you whenever your people went down into Sunnydale? You don't know what might be hiding down there, and it's not always visible."

As if in response Dana took a step backward, and stared at the soldier as is he was the crazy one. "He has spirits around him."

"But not for any reason," Riley told her desperately, "other than I'm carrying a tombstone around. Right?"

She held his gaze. "Maybe you're just -- different."

"I'm not different!"

"Relax, Riley." Buffy stretched out to kiss him on the cheek. "You can't spend time in this business without picking up a spirit or two. I know a lady in Grandview who could probably help you out."

"Oh, please," Tara scoffed. "As if I want to go into the light. I'm having lots of fun here."

"I'll, uh, consider it." He started backing up, toward the Hum-Vee's door.

Suddenly Tara laughed, and gestured toward the vehicle. "I just realized, they call those Hummers! You know what's funny about that?"

"No!" Riley tore the door open and threw himself into the driver's seat. "Buffy, I have to go, I've got duties in, um -- did you say Grandview?"

Buffy nodded. "She owns an antique shop there. Look her up, she's great."

"Right, I'll check it out -- great to see you, gotta go." He threw the Hummer into reverse, told himself he was getting a macho sports car, and fled from the building's basement as fast as the Chicago traffic would allow.

The overhead door slowly lowered behind him. When it had closed, Willow and the slayers exchanged looks.

Then they burst out laughing.

Kara's shoulders still shook, and tears streamed down her face, but not from sorrow. "I couldn't hold it back anymore!" she cried, clutching her sides.

Willow turned to the completely substantial Tara and exchanged high-fives, something she had never done when her former lover was alive, and even Dana broke into a wide grin.

Meanwhile Buffybot jumped up and down, squealing over and over, "I did it! I did it! I finally fooled someone into thinking I was the real Buffy!"

"You did a great job, Bottie," Tara assured her. "You were totally Buffy." Then she called up toward the ceiling, "Please tell me you got that?"

"I sure did," came Dawn's disembodied voice. "It'll be on the highlight reel after supper, and e-mailed to Riley right after that." Before agreeing to do this, Tara had firmly declared that they'd have to let poor Riley in on the joke as soon as possible.

The group headed toward the elevator, laughing and going over their individual parts like pilots reconstructing a dogfight. But Willow held back a little, and touched Tara's sleeve to make her also pause.

"Are you sure you don't …" Willow gestured toward the tombstone. Despite pretending to study it, she hadn't been able to bring herself to look right at the granite slab.

"It's just a stone, Willow." She sent her former lover that same wistful smile Willow had fallen in love with. "Someday this strange new body will wear out, and you'll get me another one. Another gravestone, I mean, not another body. Or, put this stone in storage, and just use it again."

Willow looked stricken at the thought of Tara dying again, so Tara hurried to change the subject. "The only thing that really bugs me is how much you and Kennedy make out."

"Hey! You said that didn't bother you!" Accepting the new direction, Willow let her voice grow light again, and turned her back on the cold stone. "We snogged plenty in our time."

"Snogged? You've been reading too much Harry Potter. Anyway, if I'd known you liked tongue rings so much …"

"Hey!"

They caught up with the others just in time to hear a plot involving hacking, gay porn sites, and Riley's computer.


	20. Gary Stu Plays the Field

**A new watcher's first field mission goes stunningly -- but not stunningly **_**well**_**.** _This is my entry in the LiveJournal site "stillgrrr" challenge prompt #62, "self-insert". As such, it stars -- well, me. Or at least, a version of me._

"We're at the back door," Buffy Summers called over the radio.

"I'm clear. Five seconds." Crouched by the warehouse's front door, Richard Philips pocketed the walkie and hoisted his crossbow.

A late afternoon sun warmed the Indiana industrial park, raising an odor of oil and asphalt. It made his black commando outfit a bit warm, but the uniform looked very cool, especially with its utility belt.

There was nothing wrong with a Watcher's outfit being cool, right? Or maybe he'd been spending too much time around younger people, specifically Xander and Andrew.  
The unlocked door opened silently, assisted by WD-40 he'd sprayed on the hinges. This warehouse was the center of recent odd sightings, leading nearby businesses to lock up early.

His team's job was to make it just another small town industrial park.

Lit security lights confirmed their intelligence that these particular demons had poor eyesight, relying on their sense of smell to hunt. He'd considered cutting power and using night vision goggles, but it was a relatively small building, and he anticipated no problems tracking them down.

The warehouse area itself was mostly empty, closed since the last economic downturn. Three working lights threw shadows, but there weren't many shadows to throw: A few stacks of wooden pallets, scattered cardboard boxes, and a single forklift abandoned in the middle of the concrete expanse. With practiced ease, he scanned for both trap doors and problems at ceiling level, and found nothing.

On the opposite side of the warehouse a shadow drifted across the far wall, as Dana covered her half of the area. No problems there; but to Richard's left an area of offices, meeting rooms, and storage areas stretched across the building, and two doors led into that area. That's where they expected the trouble to start.

Dana waited for him, and at a nod they entered the doors simultaneously.

A hallway. The first door off of it led to a conference room, and there still another door made him hesitate. As a volunteer firefighter, searching for victims and flames, he'd seldom worried about being attacked. He glanced behind him but saw no movement.

Well, he'd wanted field work. He had the weapons, training, and knowledge, not to mention experience handling emergencies as a firefighter and father. The father thing was the more challenging.

Striding to the door, he jerked it open.

Darkness. No light, no window. Heart thumping, Richard jerked back, fumbling for his flashlight. _Of course all the rooms won't be lit, idiot._ He'd made himself the perfect target. Light ready, he crouched down to reduce his profile and poked both light and crossbow around the corner.

Storeroom.

Shaking his head, Richard climbed to his feet, then turned to push back through into the hallway. He expected to find it empty. Instead, a figure just feet away spun around and took a step toward him – while clutching a sword.

"Hey!" His finger tightened convulsively on the crossbow trigger and with a _twang_ it let loose, leaving him with an empty weapon that would take too long to reload. "Crap –" Backing up, Richard clutched at his knife, but it slipped through his fingers and clattered to the floor.

"Ow – ow!" Buffy fell backward on her butt, staring in disbelief at the crossbow bolt sticking out of her black-clad thigh.

_Oh no._ He was beside her in an instant. "Are you all right?" _Okay, stupid question._

"It hurts!" Sounding more surprised than hurt, she reached for the protruding shaft, but Richard grabbed her hand.

"It's barbed – pulling it out might damage your circuits."

"But why does it hurt? I can't shut the pain off, and I'm leaking fluids." Her pants leg was already soaked, while blood or something like it pooled on the floor beneath her. "This has been happening ever since Dana zapped me with magic." Buffybot looked up at him, showing moist eyes and a trembling lip. "That mage zapped me too, in Missouri. Remember? It's really irritating."

A deep voice came from the door behind Richard. "Oh, my. Can we help?"

A look backward revealed a small group of gray skinned demons, watching with concern. The closest stood on Richard's dropped knife.

"Oh, hi!" Buffy gave a little wave. "It's okay, we carry bandages. Maybe a little direct pressure …"

Taking the hint, Richard reached into his first aid pouch and opened a bandage. He pressed it around the crossbow shaft while blocking the demons' vision. "Your sword," he hissed. "Pass me your sword."

"Why?"

Down the hallway a door banged open, and two armed slayers strode toward them. Dana had her sword while Richard's daughter, Kara, carried another crossbow. Richard tried to lean to one side while maintaining pressure on the wound. "Now, Kara!"

"Now what?" The two girls came to a stop, taking the situation in. "Dad – did you shoot Bottie?"

"Not exactly. I mean, yes. Kara. Demons?"

Dana glanced at the demons, who still hovered a few feet behind him. "Do you live here?"

The leader nodded. "When we got back and found the front door open we figured it was kids looking for a place to skateboard again. Usually we just ruffle our plumage, growl, and they stay away for a awhile."

_Plumage?_ Richard, who'd been winding a roll of gauze around Bottie's thigh to secure the bandage, looked up in confusion. "Taftri demons don't have plumage."

The leader shivered. "Oh, those horrible things. I'm so ashamed to be related to them." The others nodded.

"But –"

"These are Rafti demons," Buffybot told him.

"They are not!" Having finished his bandaging, Richard climbed to his feet and faced the group. "They're Taftri. They massacre families and eat bone marrow. It's in the books."

The demons turned pale, and one waved its hands. "But – we're vegetarians."

"No, no –" This was ridiculous. He was a watcher – maybe not for long, but he knew how to tell one demon from another. Reaching into his breast pocket, he produced a photo and waved it at his teammates. "I took this picture myself, in the Appalachians. Taftri demon."

The robot craned her neck, and the two slayers leaned in. A moment later Richard caught a flash of movement down the hallway, then Kara and Dana parted to let Tara McClay get a look.

"Ooh," one of the demons gasped. "A ghost!"

"Um, the ones in the photo are Taftri; these are Rafti demons." Looking apologetic, Tara pointed from the photo to the demons. "See? Two horns instead of three, the skin's a bit grayer, and their teeth aren't as sharp."

"What?"

Before he could examine it more closely, Kara grabbed the picture away. "Hey, I took this picture."

"You most certainly did not –"

"Don't you remember? Your old frostbite injury was acting up, so Dana and I finished the surveillance. This one's mine."

Richard stood there, searching his memory, and not recalling one way or another. He knew which pictures he took, and which ones he didn't. Didn't he? But the creatures before him had only two horns each, and teeth as innocent looking as a human's. Where had his mind been when he spotted them while driving through town the day before?

"I can't believe you shot Bottie." Reaching down, Kara helped Buffybot to her feet, then led her back the way they'd come. "I'm going to call Willow for first aid tips."

"I think that might be real blood!" Bottie said excitedly, as they moved down the hall.

"Well, maybe … but it's still better off inside you." Kara sent her father one last glare. "It's a good thing you're such a bad shot."

Tara sent Richard a glance, then turned to Dana. "Would you help our new friends bring their groceries in?"

Dana blinked. Richard, staring blankly toward the dusty floor, barely heard their conversation.

"Oh, it's no trouble," the lead demon said, but Dana turned to awkwardly pat him on the arm.

"I can help you secure the doors." Dana looked back at Tara just once, then led the demons away. "No more skateboarders getting in …"

Then all was silent, until Richard leaned down to retrieve his knife. He stuck it in his belt, then realized his flashlight had fallen and also retrieved it, all while avoiding what he knew would be a pitying gaze.

"It - it all worked out okay," Tara finally ventured.

"Oh? I shot the Buffybot during a mission that would have been unnecessary if I'd paid more attention in the demonology course." He took a breath, trying to maintain some semblance of control now that dignity was out of the question. "Tell me how that worked out okay."

"Well, we know now that Bottie's turning more human on the inside now, as well as the outside. Just think, if you'd shot me in the thigh we could have found out whether that spell made me just a ghost in a shell, or if I had inside parts!"

The image of shooting Tara made Richard queasy. Turning, he stalked away from her down the hall, intent on getting the hell out and avoiding everyone for awhile. When hurried steps followed him he almost snapped at her. Almost. Even in his worst moods, he found it impossible to snap at Tara.

"Richard, we're all going to make mistakes."

"You make mistakes in this job, somebody dies."

"But all you can do is your best."

That made him stop short. "When I was training officer I had people kicked off the fire department for lesser mistakes than that. When I was a teacher I railed against any other teacher who did something to harm their students."

"Then it was me who made the mistake."

"You?"

Tara looked away. "I wasn't supposed to let you out of my sight, but you seemed so confident in your plan. When I was Xander's trainee he was right there by my side –" She clamped her mouth shut.

"I'm your _trainee_?"

She nodded meekly.

"I thought I was leading this mission. I'm twice your age." But it made sense, and the drumbeat of self-ridicule in his head told him so. She'd been in the field for almost a year; he'd been mostly teaching during that time. What a fool he'd been, to think he was taking charge when really they were only humoring him.

"I'm sorry, I thought …"

"No, you …" Richard turned away, running a hand through his hair, then turned back. "I'm not mad at you, Tara. Just myself."

"But you did okay. My first time in the field, I tried to reason with a demon who'd already disemboweled twelve people – Dana pulled me away just in time. It was a dumb thing to do, but I learned from it and got better."

"How did Xander handle that?"

Tara frowned. "Pretty much the same way I handled this. He said stuff that didn't help, then told me about times he'd screwed up. Then he put his arm around me and led me away." Putting her arm around him, Tara led Richard toward the entrance.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm his nerves and brace himself for what was to come. He'd have to face the rest of the team, then he'd have to submit a report, which would lead to much ridicule. Richard supposed he'd be punished enough, soon. "You know, I think I just got carried away by this need to feel … cool."

"Oh, you're very cool." Tara smiled at him.

"Okay, now _you're_ getting carried away with that making me feel better thing." But it did make him feel better. A little.

"Seriously, if you were my age and female, and if I wasn't dead, I'd tumble for you." They pushed through the door, into the final rays of the setting sun.

"I think I'll just ignore the little caveats you added to that."


	21. Lost and Found

_This little ficlet was inspired by my daughter – or, more to the point, the state of her room._

Dana backed against the wall, eyes wide, as her roommate dashed around their quarters in a panic.  
"It's got to be here!" Kara wailed, throwing her mattress aside. "Please tell me I didn't lose it on patrol!"  
"Retrace your steps," Tara suggested from the doorway. It was easy to tell who occupied each side of the room: Dana's half was neat to a fault, bed made and her few belongings stowed carefully on her bookshelf, or hidden in her dresser.  
Kara's half – even before – was littered with CD's, magazines, and various articles of clothing, while her sheets and blankets now lay crumpled in a corner.  
Beside Tara, Buffybot's head slowly moved back and forth. "I'm scanning in infrared and ultraviolet, but there's no sign of it."  
"Dad's going to kill me!" Giving up, Kara stood in the midst of the wreckage, clutching at her own hair. "It was a gift."  
Suddenly Bottie strode forward with a shout of triumph, and reached into the lampshade on Kara's headboard. She drew out a narrow shaft of cherry wood, carefully sharpened, with Kara's name and a small heart inscribed on it. "There! It was so close to the light, I had trouble seeing it."  
"Oh, thank you!" Kara clutched it to her, and then ran for her jacket.  
"But –" Bottie shook her head. "How did it end up there?"  
Good question. Tara glanced around, and her gaze met Dana's. The youngest slayer had a look of recognition on her face, and a blush. "Maybe you put it there during a bad dream?" Dana suggested in a small voice.  
Taking Dana's hand, Tara led her toward the door. "Sometimes it's best not to ask questions, is it? Just be happy Kara's got her favorite stake back."  
Kara nodded happily. "Let's go kill things!"


	22. Shoot the Groundhog

_It's Spring_, Buffybot thought, as she waded across knee-deep snow and used her advanced optics to see through a howling wall of flying flakes ahead. _Apparently spring means something different in Canada._

She felt a tug on her long coat, and slowed down to allow the slayer Kara to catch up. "I can't see a thing, Bottie. Are you sure we're going the right direction?"

"Oh, sure. I mean, I can't see a thing either, but my GPS is dead on." The robot trudged another step, and what she'd thought was white-out conditions resolved itself into a ten foot snowdrift, or possibly an embankment. "Everything's the same temperature, so my thermal imaging doesn't help much."

"Great." Kara was all but invisible under insulated boots, snow pants, a bulky green parka, and curl after curl of striped, multicolored scarf. "I will never complain about Indiana weather again, so help me."

"It's a Nor'easter. The east coast is notorious for them." Bottie did a double take. "Kara, did you steal that scarf from Xander's nerd shelf?"

"He won't notice." She turned to the robot, so that Bottie could just make out her eyes and a bit of brown eyebrow through the cloth. "It was just hanging there on the wall by that weird blue box, waiting to keep somebody warm. I'll totally get it back in one piece. Aren't you cold?"

"I _am_ cold." Was that because of some programming for her sensing circuits, or a byproduct of the magical attacks last year that seemed to be making her more human? She'd kind of liked the parts about how she could now enjoy ice cream – well, not _now_ – and appreciate humor more, but shivering sucked. "Let's keep going."

"Right." Kara experimentally poked her boot into the ridge ahead. "It's a ridge."

"Maybe Shangri-La is right on the other side." Bottie scrambled up the rise, half believing it.

"Shangri-what?"

Teenagers clearly didn't appreciate classic movies. Bottie liked the musical version.

Instead of a paradise, they found a flat area at the top, which led off in an elevated path to both sides. Ahead, the ground dropped straight down again, revealing only another wall of whirling white. "This is an earthen dam," Bottie reported.

"Are you guessing?"

"No, it matches the contour mapping and the GPS. Look!"

The snow parted for a moment, and far off to the right, on top of the embankment, they saw a figure staring outward. In normal light it seemed like a torso without legs, but in infrared Bottie could see the figure wore white snow pants that disappeared into the background. "It's Dana."

"Oh, good – she didn't strip down like on that mission to Anchorage."

The other slayer had pulled off her parka hood, causing her dark hair to whirl wildly around her face. It didn't seem to affect her vision, though: She turned toward them, then pointed. Well, it was impossible to point in wool mittens, but they followed the direction of her extended arm to the frozen surface of the lake, past where Kara and Bottie stood.

Another figure trudged across the snow. She wore only a trench coat and stocking hat over her clothes – and boots, of course – and as they watched she paused, scanned the area, then caught sight of the two standing above her.

"Tara," Bottie reported.

"I can't see her." Kara peered in that direction, using a hand to shade her face from the driving snow.

"She's giving off an infrared signature. Wait, did ghosts do that?"

"Or maybe it's the ghost of someone who froze here." Kara stamped her feet. "Forget the signature, Bottie – even spirits seem warm when it's absolute zero out."

"But – absolute zero is minus 273.15 Celsius. It's nowhere near –"

Tara gestured emphatically further out onto the lake, then started heading that way. Turning, Bottie saw Dana drop into a seated position and slide down the embankment.

"Oh, that looks like fun – but I can do better! I'm triangulating their directions – let's go." She sprang off the side and slid down the embankment, pretending to ski. This _was_ fun! Bottie managed to stay on her feet as she hit the ice, her momentum carrying her out onto the surface as snow sprayed out around her. As soon as she stopped the robot looked back, anxious to see the look of joy on her friend's face.

No one was there. "Kara?"

A mound of snow at the edge of the ice moved as Kara sat up, then rose unsteadily to her feet. "This is not fun. It's April, dammit! This is ... not fun." The slayer brushed ineffectually at the snow that now coated her from top to bottom.

"It's all in your attitude –"

With a scoffing noise, Kara shoved her way by. "My attitude is that this is not fun. Why have we never been assigned to Hawaii?"

They were halfway across the ice before Bottie began picking up the signs. "I see footprints, Kara. Well, what's left of them." Faint depressions, really, being filled in by the blizzard as she watched.

"Fine, let's stake that sucker. We've got a plane to catch."

Quickly consulting her satellite link, Bottie determined that all plane flights in the area had been shut down due to weather. Just as quickly, she determined that Kara didn't need to hear that right now.

The tracks led them straight to a rundown wooden building at the edge of the water. Bottie analyzed the decrepit place and an almost invisible sign on the wall, quickly determined its original purpose, and decided Kara didn't need to hear that, either. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "We can get in through this dock, here."

"Do you suppose it's heated?"

"No."

Bottie's worry that the dock would creak proved foundless: Apparently noise was frozen. A sliding door stood open just enough for them to squeeze through despite their bulky clothing. Each of them reached for stakes they'd Velcroed to the outside of their coats, then they crept off in different directions.

There wasn't much to see: a big, empty storage area, a door into an office, some moldy piles of hay, and a rusty discarded tool here and there.

Then the biggest moldy pile exploded in a spray of hay and mouse droppings, and a figure launched itself at Kara.

At first Bottie thought there was something wrong with her partner. Kara swung clumsily, missed, and almost lost her footing as she tried to reposition. Maybe she had hay fever?

No. It was Kara's clothes. Coat, snow pants, jacket, jeans, shirt, undershirt, long johns – Kara could barely move, and couldn't see well, either. The demon, with no need to be warm and dressed in a rather tacky gray business suit, had no problems with range of motion.

Bottie launched herself at the vampire, but her swing also missed, and she succeeded only at knocking him back a few steps.

When the vamp roared back, Bottie confidently shoved the stake in his direction. But even though the guy looked like he'd been a meek accountant in another life, he easily sidestepped her thrust and rammed into her, knocking the weapon aside. Bottie fell to the uneven floorboards, and despite her strength couldn't get off her back and out from under him.

Instead of trying to bite her, the vamp raised his fist, ready to smash it into her face.

Then a colorful scarf whipped around his neck and the vampire vaulted through the air, landing squarely on a figure that had been creeping up from behind. The impact slammed Dana to the hard floor, and when their opponent scrambled to his feet she lay still. From the other direction Tara ran to her, but Bottie saw her friend was still breathing and faced off against the vamp.

Kara stood for a moment, staring in dismay at one very long scarf that had become two shredded, still pretty darned long scarfs. "Dana, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to throw a vamp at you!" She took a step forward, not realizing her legs were tangled in the material, and keeled over like a falling tree.

_Oh, now I see why the term "That went well" is so ironic._ Bottie faced off against the vampire, alone and weaponless, and still encumbered by pound after pound of polyester and down filling. She had other weapons – three or four layers in.

The vampire looked her up and down. Then he held up both hands. "Kill me."

"Say huh?"

He shook his head, and when he did a few strands of hair broke off and tinkled to the floor. It had no noticeable effect on his male-pattern baldness. "Please. I can't take it anymore."

"You can't take what?" Bottie had always thought nothing bothered vampires but stakes and crosses, except when they got re-souled and all moody.

"I thought it would be great, coming up here, feeding on people snowed in and helpless, when no one could get to them. Never worrying about the sun – 'Thirty Days of Night' stuff, right?"

"Very scary movie," Bottie agreed.

"But I can't take it anymore." He dropped to his knees. "The mountains of snow, the constant gloom – sometimes I could go out in the middle of the day, but why bother? Every time I'd try to feed I'd have to fight my way through a foot of wool or down filling. Have you ever had a mouthful of down?"

"No, I'd have remembered."

"See this?" The vamp held up his left hand. The pinkie was missing. "One night this guy tried to fend me off with a beer bottle, and my finger just snapped off. Snapped right off! Frozen solid. Then he apologized for hurting me before I ate him. Canadians!"

"They seem very nice."

"I've lost three toes, and I can't smell blood anymore, and this isn't a trick of the light: My skin really is blue. One night this chick told me I was sparkling and made a joke about me being Edward. Turned out I was covered with hoar frost. Sure, she thought my teeth were fake at the time, but a guy can only take so much insult."

"Oh, that's horrible," Bottie murmured sympathetically.

Agitated, the vamp stood again and waved his arms. "You know what this place is? An ice house! They stored ice here. Who needs ice in Canada? It's been spring for two weeks, look around. I had to put on extra layers just to keep my private parts from snapping off, and if you don't drink your victims right away you end up sucking on a bloodsickle. I'm ready to throw myself into a microwave. Please, just end this."

Then the vamp stopped, staring at the tip of a stake protruding from his chest. For just an instant, he looked grateful.

Then ash, instantly frozen into crystals, drifted to the floor, leaving Kara standing there with a sympathetic expression. "Mercy killing."

Tara, who was helping Dana to her feet, nodded. "I've never heard any vampire complain that much, not even Spike. Well, maybe him. How are you, Dana?"

"Ow." Dana ran a gloved hand over her head, then frowned. "I can't feel my scalp."

"Neither can I." Tara looked around, and Bottie guessed she was searching for some source of heat. Of course, a place designed to keep ice frozen through summer – even a summer up here – wouldn't have that. "Let's get back to the car."

"Oh, I'll start it up!" Bottie liked to tell people she still had a few tricks up her sleeve, and one of those was the ability to start a car remotely. She concentrated, concentrated more, then sighed. "The battery's dead."

They looked at each other. "Of course it is," Kara finally said.

"Sorry. Okay, I just called for a jump. For the car, not me." Bottie gathered Kara into a hug, and started edging toward the others. "Let's share body heat."

"I have to replace this scarf." Kara freed one hand to wrap the remains of the scarf around her neck. "Do you think some company makes these monstrosities, somewhere?"

"Oh, probably." They headed out, while Bottie pondered the idea of a vampire driven insane by too much dark and cold. It didn't seem likely.

But then, at the moment, neither did spring.


End file.
